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THE 
GEEAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 




.O-lLL-d XIV 
^i-oni a paiiitina Vy ^i^u^au/i 

lona^ti, Smilrh.EliEr &Cc..l5,V/ktErl=o Place 



THE GREAT DAYS OF 
VERSAILLES 



STUDIES FEOM COUET LIFE IN THE 
LATER YEARS OE LOUIS XIV 



BY 

a F BRADBY 



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WITH PORTRAITS 



NEW YORK: CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

LONDON : SMITH, ELDER, & CO. 

1906 



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PREFACE 

The following pages do not profess to be history ; still 
less do they pretend to throw any new light upon a period 
which is already so exhaustively known through its 
memoirs and its letters. All that I have attempted to do 
is to reconstruct from familiar materials a picture of Court 
life at Versailles in the later years of Louis XIV — the 
manners, customs, and interests of a unique society which 
has no counterpart in modern Europe — and to give a brief 
account of the private life and character of some of the 
people who figured most prominently in the events of the 
time. My hope is that such a compilation may be of use 
to those who intend to study the French eighteenth-century 
memoirs, by making them familiar with some of the 
personal questions which counted for so much at the 
French Court ; and, also, that it may not be without 
interest for that large class of people who have neither 
time nor opportunity to study the period in detail, and 
who are forced to be content with the summaries of others. 
Such a work as I have contemplated is almost 
necessarily based on Saint-Simon; but no writer needs 
to be read in a more critical spirit than Saint-Simon. 
Not only is he inclined to colour his canvas with a wealth 



Vi THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

of picturesque detail which is often more dramatically 
appropriate than historically true, but, also, he is not 
always careful to distinguish between what he knew and 
what he only surmised. Moreover, he writes with a strong 
personal and political bias, and, with all his acumen, he 
could never see life except through the eyes of a privileged 
caste. For him, the welfare of France was bound up with 
the maintenance of the ducal prerogatives ; and to assert 
the privileges of his order was the most sacred of the 
duties that he imposed on himself. Sympathy with his 
aims covered a multitude of sins ; open antagonism was 
the unpardonable offence, and connoted a number of other 
undesirable qualities which set his pen * dipping for the 
hottest ink.' To the Due du Maine he is manifestly and 
flagrantly unjust ; Madame de Maintenon, whom he did 
not know personally, becomes in his excited imagination 
the incarnation of all that is most unlovely in human 
nature; and he will not allow that Vendome possessed 
a single military talent or won a solitary victory on his 
own initiative. 

Fortunately, we do not depend on Saint- Simon alone 
for our knowledge of the secret history of the times ; the 
memoirs of Dangeau, the Grande Mademoiselle, Madame 
de Caylus, Madame de Staal, and, above all, the letters of 
Madame de Maintenon, provide a useful and necessary 
corrective to the animus of his brilliant pages. Madame, 
the Princess Palatine, who poured out her soul in 
voluminous letters, is a storehouse of information; but 
she was as good a hater as Saint-Simon, and, when she is 
criticising individuals, her judgments need to be taken 



PREFACE Vll 

-with as many grains of salt as those of the great memoir- 
writer himself. 

Besides drawing freely from the above-mentioned 
sources I have pillaged Arvede Barine's ' Louis XIV et 
la Grande Mademoiselle,' Pierre de Nolhac's works on 
Versailles, and Druon's *Histoire de I'J&ducation des Princes 
dans la Maison des Bourbons de France ' — one of the 
most interesting and suggestive works on education 
extant ; and, while I am acknowledging my obligations, 
I should like to add that I am indebted to my friend 
Mr. C. P. Hastings for much valuable advice and criticism, 
and to Mr. H. Chitty and Miss E. D. Bradby for help in 
seeing the volume through the press. 

Nobody is more conscious than myself of its short- 
comings, but for two of the most obvious I should like 
to plead extenuating circumstances. In the first place, 
I know that I have been guilty, more than once, of * vain 
repetition.' The plan I have adopted of treating my 
principal characters in separate compartments made 
a certain amount of overlapping almost inevitable ; and, 
on the whole, I have thought it better to lay myself open 
to the charge of being redundant than to risk being 
obscure. In the second place, when quoting Saint-Simon 
at any length, I have ventured to paraphrase rather than 
translate. I feel the enormity of the crime : but few 
writers lose so much by translation as Saint-Simon. His 
rapid fire of words, his carelessness of construction, and 
his habit of producing a cumulative impression by piling 
phrase on phrase, are singularly effective in the French, 
but do not lend themselves to our English idiom ; and 



Vlll THE GEEAT DAYS OF VEESAILLES 

any attempt to reproduce the originality and vigour of his 
style is certain to fail of its object, unless it is undertaken 
by an abler pen than mine. 

For the inaccuracies which, I feel sure, will have crept 
into these pages, as well as for a habit of dogmatising on 
insufficient data, I must throw myself on the indulgence 
of the reader, with the frank admission that the latter of 
the two faults, at all events, is almost inseparable from 
the pedagogue. 

G. F. B. 

Eugby. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER PAO-K 

I. Versailles 1 

II. Life at Court 27 

III. Manners and Customs 58 

IV. Some Celebrities at the Court 89 

V. Louis XIV 126 

VI. Louis XIV [continued) 158 

VII. Mmb. de Maintenon 193 

viii. Monsieur 234 

IX. Madame 252 

X. Monseigneur, the Grand Dauphin 291 

XI. The Duke and Duchess of Burgundy .... 317 

xii. Due d'Anjou and Dug de Berry 857 

Genealogical Tables 871 

Index 877 



POETEAITS 



Louis XTV Frontispiece 

From the painting by Rigaud in the Muiie du Louvre. 

Louis XIV with the Dauphin, Due de Bour- 

GOGNE, Due D'AnJOU (LoUIS XV), AND MaDAMB 

DE Maintenon •••*..( To face p. 158 

From the painting iy LargilMre at Hertford House. 

Maeie -Adelaide, Duohesse de Boukgogne . . „ 317 

From the painting ly Santerre at Versailles. 



PEELIMINAEY 



In speaking of members of the royal family I have used the 
nomenclature of the time ; as it is apt to be puzzling, the reader will 
do well to bear in mind that : — 

THE QUEEN MOTHER = Anne of Austria, widow of Louis XIII; 

d. 1666. 
THE QUEEN = Marie-Ther&se, daughter of Philip IV of Spain ; 

d. 1683. 

MONSEIGNEUR or the GRAND DAUPHIN = Louis, eldest and 
only surviving (legitimate) son of Louis XIV; d. 1711. 

The DUO DE BOURGOGNE = the eldest son of Monseigneur : 
became Dauphin in 1711 ; d. 1712. 



MONSIEUR = Philippe Due d'Orleans, only brother of Louis XIV ; 

d. 1701. 
MADAME or the PRINCESS PALATINE = the second wife of the 

above, daughter of the Elector Palatine and great-grand-daughter 

of James I of England ; d. 1722. 

The DUO DE CHARTRES or the DUO D'ORLEANS = the only 
surviving son of the above : became Regent in 1715 ; d. 1723. 

THE DUCHESSE DE CHARTRES or D'ORLEANS = his wife, we« 
MUe. de Blois, youngest daughter of Louis XIV and Madame de 
Montespan ; d. 1749. 

M. LE PRINCE = Henri Jules de Bourbon-Conde, son of the great 
Conde, and senior Prince of the Blood ; d. 1709. 

M. LE DUC = the son of M. le Prince ; d. 1710. 

MADAME LA DUCHESSE = the wife of M. le Due, nee Mile, de 
Nantes, daughter of Louis XIV and Madame de Montespan; 
d. 1743. 

THE PRINCESSE DE CONTI {nee MUe. de Blois, a daughter 
of Louis XIV and Mile, de la Valliere) = the widow of Louis 
Armand de Conti {d. 1685), nephew of the Grand Conde ; d. 1739. 

THE PRINCE DE CONTI = the brother of Louis Armand : he 
married a daughter of M. le Prince ; d. 1709. 



Genealogical tables will be found at the end of the book. 



rfif 



THE 

GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 



CHAPTEE I 

VEESAILLES 

Versailles — Its origin — Its splendour — Trianon — Marly — Fontainebleau — 
The Suisses— The servants — Premiers valets de chanabre — Bontemps. 

If, in the end, Versailles charms by the grace and delicacy 
of its detail, its first effect is to stun by the vastness 
of its proportions. The stupendous pile that faces the 
empty wilderness of the Place d'Armes, with its vista of 
diminishing courts and its two wings that stretch right 
and left into infinity, is more reminiscent of the great 
works of Egyptian kings than any other palace in Europe. 
Indeed, the spirit that underlies it has much in common 
with the spirit of the Pharaohs. There is the same 
reckless squandering of the resources of a nation, the 
same prodigality of labour, the same defiance of nature 
and contempt for difficulty. A city where there had been 
a few poor houses, a palace that surpassed in splendour 
the glories of the Louvre and Fontainebleau, an unrivalled 
network of fountains on a plain devoid of running water, 
something vast where nature seemed to have put her veto 
on the works of man — that was the achievement which 
Louis XIV wrung from an exhausted France. 

But Versailles is not only vast ; it is beautiful. For 

B 



2 THE GREAT DAYS OF VEESAILLES 

nearly a century the best talent in France was employed 
on its decoration. Architects, sculptors, painters, gold- 
smiths, founders, and landscape gardeners, made and 
remade, till the palace became the great storehouse of 
the artistic genius of the period. Perhaps the art is not 
the highest art ; perhaps one storey of the Giotto Tower 
is worth all the mass of marble and stone and brick which 
are piled together at Versailles ; one corner of an English 
copse in Spring more beautiful than the acres of formal 
garden, with their artificial bosquets, their nymphs, and 
statues, and fountains. Still the place has a charm and 
a character of its own. And if the eye grows weary of 
straight lines and interminable vistas, if the mind cloys 
at the endless repetition of classical myth degraded to do 
honour to a man who was only second rate, there is a 
purpose and a dignity in the very monotony of line, a 
grace and a gaiety in the modelling of the individual 
figures, which are very pleasing and very French. Above 
all there is a unity of purpose and design, which, as the 
eye grows accustomed to the unusual scale of its sur- 
roundings, becomes increasingly impressive. Whatever 
are the faults of Versailles, its creators knew what effect 
they intended to produce ; and they produced it with an 
ease and a certainty that astonish. 

And the architecture and architectural landscape that 
dominate everything were truly representative of the 
character of the people who created them. It says much 
for the artistic capacity of a nation when it can translate 
itself into brick and mortar ; when it feels the necessity 
of harmonising its external surroundings with its internal 
modes of thought. If you wish for a contrast, walk 
through any of the modernised thoroughfares of London, 
with their eclectic jumble of Byzantine, Gothic, and 
Eenaissance, their eternal and fruitless striving after 
something that shall satisfy. Every street is a museum 



VERSAILLES 3 

of wasted energy and ineffectual effort at expression. 
Now Versailles, whatever its architectural faults, does at 
least satisfy, because it is an adequate expression of the 
ancien regime. If there is a monotonous uniformity 
about its outlines, a certain pomposity about its scheme 
of decoration, there was monotony and pomposity too in 
the life that was lived there, where the daily routine was 
a long parade and the most trivial act of the sovereign 
a ceremony : if the landscape is formal and artificial, so 
were the modes of thought of those who took their 
pleasure in its stately gardens, and who yet combined 
with their formality a certain vivacity and impetuous 
gaiety that speak in the detail of frieze, and cornice, 
and pillar, in the bronze groups of laughing children, and 
in the dainty pastorals of Watteau, and Mignard, and 
Lancret. 

But it is neither to its vastness nor to its art treasures 
that Versailles owes its unique attraction, but to this fact, 
that it stands for one complete epoch of history and for 
nothing else. The curse of most historical buildings is 
that they contain too much of history : the mind wanders 
restlessly from century to century, and finds no central 
and solid halting-place. In the Tower of London it is 
bewildered by successive images of Norman, Plantagenet, 
and Tudor ; in the Forum the Empire struggles for the 
mastery with the Republic, and the Renaissance impinges 
upon both ; even on the Acropolis, Eome and Venice 
and Turkey do something to blur the memory of Pericles. 
But Versailles has been stranded high and dry. It came 
into history through a whim of Louis XIV, and history 
may almost be said to have left it on that October after- 
noon in 1789 when Lous XVI drove for the last time 
through its iron gate, a prisoner of the Paris mob. 

Thus there is nothing to distract the mind from the 
period of which it is the symbol and the expression : it 



4 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

stands there a complete whole. And yet not quite com- 
plete ; for, to be entirely itself, Versailles needs the gaily 
coloured groups of seigneurs and grandes dames on its 
broad terraces and down its long perspectives ; the bustle 
of carriages and footmen and lackeys in its silent courts ; 
the roll of the Swiss drums or the distant tinkle of a 
lute ; even the motley throng of hawkers and fruit-sellers 
who crowded the approaches and sometimes penetrated 
on to the stairs. Without these Versailles has something 
of the appearance of a great and melancholy ghost. 

Yet nowhere is it more easy to reconstruct the past. 
It needs no great effort of the imagination to re-people 
the empty halls and corridors with the living forms of 
the men and women who still look down on their old 
haunts from the pictures on the walls. Here it is the 
stately figure of the Grand Monarque himself, moving 
majestically through the grands apparteinents on his way 
to the chapel, with the famous red-heeled shoes that 
added artificially to his height, and the air of almost 
overpowering dignity which, in spite of its somewhat 
theatrical pose, impressed friends and foes alike. Or in 
his later years we see him wheeled about the gardens in 
his bath-chair, while the Duchess of Burgundy, the life 
and darling of the Court, hovers round him and coaxes 
the hard mouth into a smile. In yonder suite of rooms 
that open on to the ' Queen's Staircase,' while the king 
transacts State business with Chamillart, Madame de 
Maintenon is still seated at her embroidery before the 
fire, her heavy, almost sullen face ostentatiously fixed 
upon her work, while her thoughts are far away at Saint- 
Cyr. Or it is Monseigneur, the Grand Dauphin, who 
walks nonchalantly through the CEil-de-Boeuf, a superb 
lay figure, with his handsome empty face, his great blonde 
wig and blue eyes, and his thoughts that revolve round 
the table, the chase and the weather. And in these 



VERSAILLES 5 

gloomy little rooms, which look out upon a small and 
sunless court — rooms where in after years poor Marie 
Leczinska will try to forget her sorrows, and Marie 
Antoinette will take refuge from the vexatious etiquette 
of a censorious Court— the Duke of Burgundy is seated, 
deep in prayer or study, preparing himself for the task 
which Providence seemed to have assigned him — the 
great but difficult task of healing the wounds of France. 
And everywhere, in the state-rooms and the galleries, on 
the terraces and in the gardens, there is a steady stream 
of courtiers and court functionaries, princes and princesses 
of the blood, dukes and marquises, bishops and abbes, 
ladies of the palace and maids of honour — all the people 
whom Saint-Simon and the Memoirs of the eighteenth 
century have made real to us as no other characters in 
history are real, with their heroisms and their petty 
intrigues, their shining virtues and their dark vices, 
their strange blending of wit and ignorance, taste and 
vulgarity, and their curious capacity for living ten 
thousand miles away from facts and yet remaining in- 
tensely human. 

It is a strangely fascinating world ; a world that is 
widely different from our own and yet startles every now 
and again by its resemblance ; a world of reckless extrava- 
gance and false ideals. It was the outcome of peculiar 
circumstances which, one hopes, can never be repeated ; 
but it contains a great warning and is worth a study. 
And if, in its annals, there are pages that disgust, the 
disgust is always redeemed by terror ; because each act 
of folly and lust is an essential part of a fearful tragedy, 
and one always hears behind it the rattle of the tumbrils 
and the roar of the Paris mob. For here, as nowhere 
else in history, a great drama was played out to the bitter 
end. Every sin was allowed to work out its logical con- 
sequences. And, though there were some good men and 



6 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

many clever ones amongst those who helped to shape the 
destinies of the age, there was no one wise enough or 
strong enough to stem the current and avert the impend- 
ing cataclysm. From its first inception Versailles had 
been a challenge to nature, and the system, of which it 
was the citadel, a defiance of the laws that govern human 
life. It stands to-day a silent witness to the futility of 
all effort that works not with but against nature ; and the 
flag that floats above it records the vengeance, ruthless 
and indiscriminate, but sure, which, in the end, overtakes 
all authority and power that waste themselves on selfish 
aims and dare not face realities. 

But if the men and women who laughed through the 
earlier scenes of the tragedy were often shallow and 
generally blind, they were very witty and attractive. 
There was a sparkle and individuality in their talk, a 
natural ease and gaiety about their bearing, which win 
our sympathy even while we condemn. Their keen in- 
telligent faces watch us still from a hundred portraits. 
Some charm with a dainty prettiness, others are ugly, but 
with an ugliness that is generally distinguished : nearly 
all impress with a sense of character, and not even the 
most idealised are insipid. And we know so much about 
them ; their ambitions and disappointments, their intrigues 
and their pleasures, what they made of life and how they 
faced death. If, by a miracle, we could step back into the 
past and find ourselves amongst them in the flesh, we 
should hardly feel like strangers. Dangeau at least we 
should recognise, with his flowing wig and pompous fea- 
tures, trying to look like Louis XIV ; and Turenne with 
the serious melancholy face and the inscrutable eyes ; 
and Louvois with the masterful, almost truculent, air ; 
and solid florid Le Notre, the genius of the gardens ; and 
the half sad, half humorous smile of Fenelon. And they, 
if they could step down from their frames, would not find 



VERSAILLES 7 

themselves in an unrecognisable world. Changes, no 
doubt, thej^ would notice in plenty ; marble replaced by 
carved wood-panelling ; the rooms and galleries emptied 
of their costly furniture ; and, in the gardens, the long 
avenues of clipped hornbeams and yews superseded by 
elms and limes, less familiar than their predecessors with 
the remorseless pruning hook. But the changes are only 
changes of detail ; and from the windows of the Galerie 
des Glaces, where they so often stood and gossiped, they 
would see the same broad terrace with the same statues 
and fountains and boxwood borders ; and beyond it the 
familiar vista past the fountain of Latona, the tapis vert, 
the hassin d'ApoUon, and the canal with its fleet of small 
boats ; and so away to the Porte de Maintenon and the 
horizon where the Forest of Marly breaks the skyline 
and still recalls those exploits of the chase which were to 
all a welcome recreation, and to some the most serious 
occupation of their lives. 

Versailles, indeed, began as a hunting-lodge of Louis 
XIII, who built, on a bit of rising ground that sloped up 
from the adjacent swamps and forest, what Saint-Simon 
picturesquely calls a 'petit chateau de cartes.' Here he 
was wont to come from time to time with a few chosen 
friends to spend the night roughly and without ceremony. 
Here too Louis XIV hunted as a boy. The surroundings 
were not generally considered attractive, and the climate, 
owing to the prevalence of marshland, was unhealthy. 
Even at the present day, though the land has long been 
drained and planted, the air is often heavy and relaxing. 
But for some reason or other, the place acquired for the 
young king pleasant associations, and, in 1662, he decided 
to make of it a country residence, to which he could pay 
short visits with his queen and the favourites of the 
Court. Alterations were made, chiefly in the gardens ; 
but the Chateau also was partially reconstructed, and, in 



8 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

1664, enough money was being spent on it to alarm the 
thrifty Colbert. He ventured to remonstrate with the 
king, to disparage the charms of Versailles, and to urge 
that, if money was to be expended, the completion of the 
Louvre would be a more worthy and enduring monument 
of a great king. Louis listened to him graciously; did 
something for the Louvre, but continued to spend on 
Versailles. Creation is more fascinating than completion, 
and the very difficulty of the task appealed to him ; for 
Versailles had no natural advantages. A sandy soil and 
a complete absence of running water made the gardens 
a formidable problem. But Louis enjoyed such problems, 
and their successful solution seemed a striking, if expensive, 
way of triumphing over nature. The gardens grew as if 
by magic ; bosquets were transplanted bodily from the 
forest of Compiegne, gods and goddesses in stone were 
called in to people the long avenues, and fountains began 
to plash on the terrace. Louis took a pride in his achieve- 
ment ; the royal visits became more and more frequent, 
the fetes increasingly splendid. In 1668, after a week 
of festivities, given, nominally, in honour of the queen, 
but really to please his beautiful mistress, Mme. de 
Montespan, Louis decided to begin everything afresh, 
and to make Versailles a palace worthy of the greatest 
monarch in Europe. But here a difficulty arose, Le 
Vau, the architect, insisted that the little two-storeyed 
lodge of Louis XIII should come down ; the King was 
equally determined that it should stand ; it might be 
raised by a storey and the fa9ade might be embellished, 
but the original structure must not be removed. The 
exact motive of this piece of conservatism is not clear ; 
but, whether it were filial piety or merely a royal whim, 
the result was the same. The king had to be obeyed, 
but the architect won him to a compromise. The chateau 
de cartes was enveloped from behind but allowed to give 



VERSAILLES 9 

the keynote to the arrangement of the front, with the 
result that Versailles presents two entirely different styles 
and aspects according as it is viewed from the east or 
from the west side. On the east, or Paris side, there 
are the red and white brick, the steep slate-roofing, and 
the picturesque variety, of a French seventeenth-century 
chateau. On the west, or garden side, one is confronted 
by the unbroken uniformity of Eoman Renaissance 
— an impressive but rather monotonous mass of white 
stone, imperfectly relieved by the niched statues of the 
walls and the trophies which, with the exception of the 
chapel, alone break the long straight skyline. In the 
glare of a summer noon there is something overpowering 
in this huge west front, with its rows of dazzling windows 
and its ponderous size ; but by moonlight, or in the 
gathering shadows of evening, its effect is mysterious 
and almost fairy-like — you would say a palace of ice or 
snow. 

The building was hardly completed when Louis' head 
was already full of new schemes involving still more 
drastic changes. His plan was nothing less than to move 
the seat of government bodily from Paris to Versailles, 
and to make of the latter place a palace, almost a city, 
in which he could house his court, his ministers, and all 
the army of officials and dependents who were attached 
to the royal service. Versailles was to become the centre 
of France, and, through France, of Europe ; and the 
waste land that formed the approach to the palace, and 
which was only occupied by a few poor inns or cottages, 
was to be the site of a new town, where the noblest 
families were to build their private houses on fixed and 
uniform patterns : for, like all monarchs who think im- 
perially, Louis had a passion for uniformity. 

The motive of this momentous change is to be found 
in the king's dislike of Paris. The mocking and irreverent 



10 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

spirit of the Parisians was not calculated to appeal to a 
man who hated to have his actions criticised or his person 
held up to ridicule. Moreover, Paris was associated with 
certain early humiliations, which, at the zenith of his 
splendour, he was anxious to forget. At Versailles he was 
safe from the memory of failure as well as from the frank 
wit and the searching gaze of the mob, but near enough 
to keep in constant touch with his troublesome capital. 
Had his dislike of Paris induced him to move still further 
, off, to Eambouillet for instance, his descendant, perhaps, 
would never have become the prisoner of the revolutionary 
mob, and the fate of the French monarchy might have 
been different. 

The work of transformation began in 1674, Mansart 
being the architect. At one time more than thirty-six 
thousand men were employed on the building. Death 
and disease were often busy amongst them, and in 1678 
cartloads of dead were carried away every night from the 
temporary barracks in which the workmen were housed. 
But life was held cheap. Nothing was allowed to stay 
the progress of the work, and on May 6, 1682, though 
much still remained to be done, the Court was able to 
move into its new quarters. 

The new palace was very splendid. Marble was the 
dominant feature in the decoration of walls and floors. As, 
however, it was soon discovered that the water used in 
washing trickled through the slabs and rotted the beams 
beneath, the flooring was taken up in most of the rooms 
and replaced by wood. But the walls were left undisturbed. 
They were adorned with Gobelin tapestry representing 
great events in the life of the monarch, and the ceilings 
Vei^e frescoed with allegorical subjects in honour of the 
same. All the furniture in the state apartments was at 
first made of silver, but before the century closed an empty 
exchequer and unsuccessful wars had compelled Louis to 



VERSAILLES 11 

send to the Mint whatever could be converted into current 
coin ; and the silver tables, chairs, and cabinets, the 
chefs d'oeuvre of Claude Ballin and many another, dis- 
appeared from Versailles and were never replaced. Still, 
enough remained of splendour and extravagance to draw 
from Fenelon in 1693 an indignant protest against a 
luxury that was 'monstrous and incurable.' The up- 
holstery was rich and varied with the season ; green and 
flame-coloured velvets were the favourite material in 
winter ; brocades with gold and silver flowers and silks of 
all shades, in summer ; and the marbles, mirrors, and 
tapestries on the walls, alone were worth a king's ransom. 
Most resplendent of all was the Galerie des Glaces, which 
served as the main artery of communication in the royal 
quarters, with its seventeen broad windows and its three 
hundred and six' mirrors. Two large Savonnerie ^ carpets, 
masterpieces of art in their own way, completely covered 
the floor ; two rows, each of twelve crystal lustres, and 
massive silver candlesticks placed at either end, lighted it 
at night. The window-curtains were of white damask, 
embroidered with gold. 

But though there may be a dignity about life in 
marble halls, there is, at least in northern climates, very 
little comfort. The fireplaces, with their wide chimneys 
and massive mantelpieces, shot out a little warmth into 
the space immediately around them ; but they were 
powerless to affect the broad and chilly surfaces of 
marble and metal in those large and lofty rooms. In the 
March of 1695 the wine froze in the glasses on the 
king's table, and even in more clement seasons there was 
a complete absence of that subtle and indefinable charm 
which we associate with the word ' cosy.' The royal 
people who were condemned to live in this splendid 

' Some beautiful specimens of Savonnerie carpets may be seen in the 
Louvre. 



12 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

bondage felt their chains and were glad to escape, when- 
ever court etiquette made it possible, to the closets and 
petits appartements which they fitted up at the back of 
their state-rooms. No matter how small and dingy these 
private rooms might be, nor how devoid of outlook, 
anything was better than the oppressive magnificence of 
the surroundings which Louis had designed for the use 
of his family. 

But, if the great people suffered from a plethora of 
space, their inferiors were crowded together in an in- 
sanitary jumble that made Versailles anything but an 
abode of bliss. North and south of the central block of 
buildings stretched two great wings, each three storeys 
high. The best apartments, those namely on the ground 
and first floors, looking on to the gardens, were, indeed, 
spacious and comfortable, and were allotted to the Princes 
of the Blood ; but the rest of the building was a perfect 
labyrinth of small rooms, staircases, kitchens, and entre- 
sols, in which the smaller fry lived hugger-mugger, with 
little air and less comfort. Mme. de Staal, femme de 
chambre of the Duchesse du Maine, describes the kind of 
accommodation which was thought good enough for de- 
pendents at Sceaux. ' I was astonished,' she says, ' at 
seeing the dwelling-place assigned me. It was an entre- 
sol, so low and dark that I had to stoop when I walked, 
and feel my way about. One couldn't breathe for want 
of air, or warm oneself for lack of a fireplace. . . . The 
cold was beginning to make itself felt, and we had only 
one garde-robe between the four of us, in which to warm 
ourselves ; but I preferred the cold to the ill-temper and 
insipid conversation of my companions. I used to shut 
myself up in my " cave " and console myself by reading. 
I hadn't even got this hovel to myself : the premiere 
femme de chambre, who passed her nights in the Duchesse 
du Maine's bedroom, shared it with me in the daytime. 



VERSAILLES 13 

She had her hours for sleeping, and, as she was married, 
it was the only place where she could see her husband in 
private. At such times I had to take up my quarters out 
of doors in a bosquet. If it was wet or cold I had no 
refuge but the galleries. My room at Versailles, where 
we passed the winter, was even more intolerable. No ray 
of sunlight had ever penetrated into it. A companion, 
more unsociable than the one I had had at Sceaux in the 
summer, was there day and night. The want of space 
led to continual disputes, or the smoke compelled us to 
leave the room altogether.' Nor did time bring improve- 
ments ; for, a century later, the future Mme. Koland, 
visiting Versailles as a child, was painfully struck by the 
stench which pervaded the place and emanated chiefly 
from the wings. 

But, if the unsavoury odours from the wings some- 
times offended the king's nostrils, they did not seriously 
trouble his composure. No doubt he considered the dis- 
comfort of his courtiers as more than atoned for by 
proximity to the royal person. Anyhow, he had found 
in his own state and private apartments the fitting back- 
ground for the dull but dignified existence which he 
mistook for greatness. But no human being, however 
indifferent he may be to the ordinary comforts of life, 
can live permanently in state ; and, even before Versailles 
was completed, there were moments when Louis felt the 
burden of the rigid etiquette which he had imposed on 
himself as well as on others, and began to experience 
the need of some relaxation from the monotonous task 
of being splendid, some place, less vast and formal than 
Versailles, which would be more really his own, and to 
which he could escape occasionally in the company of 
a few chosen friends. 

At the further end of the Park, barely a mile from 
the Chateau, there was a small hamlet with a church. 



14 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

It was within easy reach of the palace, either on foot 
(and the king liked walking) or by boat along the artificial 
piece of water called the Canal. Louis purchased the 
property and, in 1670, erected on it a graceful porcelain 
building of one storey, named Trianon after the parish 
in which it stood — a sort of toy palace in which he 
could entertain Madame de Montespan safe from the 
prying eyes of the Court. 

But the mania for building was stronger with Louis 
than the half-conscious craving for simplicity. In 1687 
the porcelain toy was pulled down, and Trianon, though 
still limited to one storey, became a palace of marble, 
jasper, and porphyry, with gardens and fountains which 
rivalled those of Versailles. A story connected with its 
reconstruction is worth repeating. The new palace was 
just rising from the ground when the king, who had an 
accurate eye for measurements, noticed a defect in one of 
the windows, and pointed it out to Louvois, his minister of 
war, who was also surijitendant des hdtiments — an import- 
ant post under a king who was fond of building. Louvois, 
who was naturally obstinate and arrogant, and whose 
character had been still further spoiled by success, was 
vexed at being found in fault, and maintained that nothing 
was wrong with the window. Louis at the time said no 
more, and continued his walk. However, on the follow- 
ing day, he sent for Le Notre, who was an architect as 
well as landscape gardener, and asked him whether he had 
been recently to Trianon. Le Notre replied that he had not. 
Whereupon the king explained what was amiss, and told 
him to go and verify for himself. Le Notre, who was 
equally afraid of proving the king wrong and of offending 
Louvois, deferred the visit on various pretexts, till at last 
Louis grew angry and ordered both Le Notre and Louvois 
to meet him on the following day at Trianon. When 
they had all arrived on the ground, as Louvois still stuck 



VERSAILLES 15 

to his opinion, Louis ordered Le Notre to go and measure 
the window and to bring back a report. Whilst he was 
thus employed, Louvois continued to murmur crossly that 
the window was just like the others, and that there was 
no need for all this fuss. Louis said nothing, but waited 
for the decision with obvious anxiety. At last Le Notre 
returned. ' Well,' said the king, ' what have you found ? ' 
Le Notre was embarrassed, and took refuge in vague and 
uncertain phrases, till Louis, with a flash of anger, bade 
him speak clearly. Then he said bluntly that there was 
a defect, and explained its nature and extent. Louis at 
once turned upon Louvois and, in the presence of courtiers, 
valets, and workmen, rated him soundly, saying that his 
obstinacy was intolerable, and that, had he been allowed 
to have his way, the whole building would have had to come 
down again as soon as it was finished. The Minister, 
stung by this public rebuke, went home in a rage. There 
he found Saint-Pouange, Villacerf , and some other intimate 
friends. ' It's all up,' he said gloomily ; ' judging by the 
way in which he has treated me over this window I fear 
I have lost my influence with the king. My one chance 
is to give him a war which will put his buildings out of 
his head and make me indispensable, and, by God ! he 
shall have it ! ' According to the story Louvois kept his 
word, and the war of 1688 was the consequence. 

When Trianon was completed, Louis had secured 
something of what he desired, something at all events 
which varied the monotony of "Versailles. For Trianon 
had its own etiquette. Courtiers might present them- 
selves at all hours of the day ; but the meals were private 
and the king named the guests, who were usually ladies ; 
and nobody but the necessary servants ever slept the 
night in the building. Sometimes the king would pay a 
Wednesday to Saturday visit ; sometimes he would merely 
take his dinner or supper there, or pass a summer evening 



16 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

among the flowers, which were changed daily in the 
terrace beds, and whose scent was so overpowering 
that, on occasions, the king and his companions were 
forced to fly to a distance. Trianon, too, served as a 
change of venue for the fetes that celebrated a royal 
marriage or other great events. Here comedies were 
performed, and here the Duchess of Burgundy, after 
dancing through the night, could step from the terrace on 
to her barge and taste on the canal the freshness of a 
summer dawn. 

But neither Versailles nor Trianon could permanently 
satisfy. ' Tired of the grandiose and of the crowd, Louis 
became convinced that he sometimes needed solitude and 
a cottage, and he searched in the neighbourhood of Ver- 
sailles for some place where he could satisfy this new 
taste. He visited several spots ; he traversed the hills 
that lie around Saint- Germain, and the great plain that 
unrolls itself at their feet. He was urged to fix upon 
Lucienne, from which there is a charming view ; but he 
replied that the beauty of the situation would ruin him, 
and that, as he wanted a mere nothing, he wanted also a 
site which would make it impossible for him to attempt 
anything great. On the further side of the forest, and 
about eight miles from Versailles, he found, behind 
Lucienne, a deep and narrow valley, marshy, devoid of 
view, shut in by steep hills, extremely cramped, with a 
squalid village on one of its flanks called Marly, The 
work of reclaiming this cloaca, which drained all the 
neighbouring hills, was a long and difficult one : but at 
last the soil was dried and terraced, and the hermitage 
was built.' 

Thus Saint- Simon — ^ whose judgment was no doubt 
warped by his disapproval of the royal extravagance : 
for, as a matter of fact, the site of Marly is full of 
charm. Behind rises the forest, with its dark wall of 



VERSAILLES 17 

foliage, and stretches its two arms to right and left in a 
semicircular sweep. In front the ground slopes down- 
wards, in a succession of broad terraces, to a rich and 
extensive plain watered by the Seine ; and the low hills 
of Saint-Germain bound the horizon. On sunny after- 
noons in spring, at all events, when the orchards are 
white with blossom and the woods full of singing birds, 
it is not difficult to understand why Louis fixed upon this 
sheltered and secluded spot for his country retreat. At 
first it was strictly a hermitage, to which he came two 
or three times a year, from Wednesday to Saturday, with 
Madame de Maintenon and a dozen of the principal 
courtiers. But, by degrees, his liking for the place in- 
creased, and, with his liking, the original ideas of 
simplicity and solitude vanished : architects and land- 
scape gardeners were called in, and Marly underwent the 
same transformations as Versailles. 

The general design which underlay these changes was 
an original one, and aimed at producing, not a single 
impressive palace, but a group of detached buildings 
buried in foliage. In the centre was the royal residence, 
a square, two-storeyed edifice of white stone with a 
central hall which rose to the full height of the building ; 
it was slightly raised above the level of the surrounding 
ground, and was approached on all four sides by a short 
flight of steps. Behind it, the famous Cascade of Marly, 
a veritable river cataract, fell down the steep slope of the 
hill ; in front, the gardens sank gradually towards the 
plain in a series of terraces ; and, on either side of them, 
half hidden in shady avenues, were twelve pavilions 
of one storey each (representing the twelve signs of 
the Zodiac) placed at regular intervals apart, but con- 
nected with each other and with the central building by 
a continuous trellised bower. To the right of the main 
building, and partially screened from it by quincunces of 





18 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

limes, was another structure called the Perspective, in 
which the kitchens and other offices were situated, and 
where the less important guests were housed. The 
accommodation at Marly was thus neither spacious nor 
luxurious, and even the most exalted personages were 
expected to surrender their rooms in the daytime for 
public use. But the fame of the place rested not on its 
buildings but on its gardens, which even Madame, fond 
as she was of nature and prejudiced against all things 
French, admitted to be ' the finest gardens in the world.' 
Saint-Simon's graphic but censorious pen depicts some of 
their wonders. ' Forest trees brought ready-made from 
Compiegne and further still, three-quarters of which died 
and were immediately replaced ; vast tracts of thick 
wood and shady avenues changed suddenly into huge 
lakes, with boats and gondolas, and reconverted as 
suddenly into forests of impenetrable gloom. I speak 
of what I have seen happen within six weeks. Fountains 
changed a hundred times : also cascades, with their suc- 
cession of fresh statues : carp-ponds, vdth the most 
exquisite gilt and frescoed decorations, no sooner finished 
than destroyed, or redecorated with different designs by 
the same artists ; the marvellous machine which brought 
water for the fountains, with its immense aqueducts, its 
pipes, and reservoirs, devoted solely to the use of Marly, 
and no longer supplying Versailles ' ; and to these we 
might add the vast array of marble statues and stone 
vases, which lined the walks and terraces and constituted 
in themselves a veritable museum of art. * Such,' con- 
cludes Saint-Simon, ' was the fate of a place which had 
been a den of serpents, toads, frogs, and carrion ; a place 
chosen solely because it afforded no excuse for expense. 
And such was the bad taste of the king in all things, and 
his arrogant delight in forcing nature, a delight which 
neither a disastrous war nor a rigid piety could blunt. 



VERSAILLES 19 

It is no exaggeration to say that Versailles, with all its 
magnificence, cost less than Marly.'' 

In this, at all events, Saint-Simon was mistaken. 
From first to last Marly cost some eleven million francs ; 
a considerable sum, but nothing in comparison with the 
capital that had been sunk in Versailles. In prosperous 
times this minor extravagance would probably have been 
overlooked ; it was the exhaustion of the country and 
the grinding poverty of the taxpayer that made Marly a 
crime. 

But no scruples and no remorse interfered with the 
king's enjoyment of his new estate. Marly became his 
favourite residence and praise of Marly a common theme 
with the courtier who desired to please. The Abbe de 
Polignac went so far as to assure the king, one day, when 
they were caught by a shower in the gardens, that ' at Marly 
the rain didn't wet.' But the ordinary mortal contented 
himself with less outrageous forms of flattery, and marked 
his enthusiasm for the place by his eagerness to be invited 
there. There was no lack of opportunity : for it was to 
this retreat that, in the latter part of his reign, Louis 
came nearly every week from Wednesday to Saturday ; 
and, if he did not taste the pleasures of simplicity, at 
least he enjoyed a rather freer life. For Marly, like 
Trianon, had its special rules of conduct and etiquette, 
which were much less stringent than those in force at 
Versailles. If the wife was invited, her husband had the 
right to come also : anybody might join the king as he 
walked in the gardens, and leave him at pleasure ; the 
guests dined and supped together in the company of the 
king, and, with certain limitations, sat where they liked ; 

' Marly was destroyed during the Eevolution and many of the statues 
■were removed to the Tuileries Gardens. Nothing now is left but the site, 
the wall of the garden, the clumps of lime trees, traces of terracing and 
fountains, and the abreuvoir into which the water finally flowed. 

c 2 



20 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

and, with the exception of the private cabinets of the 
king and Madame de Maintenon, there was hardly a 
room in the establishment which was not public property 
in the daytime. There was, too, a more studied attempt 
at gaiety. It is true that the king rarely spoke at meals, 
and that conversation at his table was carried on in 
whispers ; but masked balls and other fetes were frequent, 
and practical jokes were permitted which would have been 
severely censured at Versailles. It was at Marly that the 
Duchesse de Bourgogne and her companions broke into 
the Princesse d'Harcourt's bedroom, one cold winter night, 
and snowballed the lady in her bed ; and that the austere 
Due de Bourgogne placed petards under the same lady's 
chair at the card-table, and was only deterred from firing 
them by a friend's suggestion that the explosion would 
probably blow the princess to bits ; at Marly, too, that 
the king's daughters, Madame la Duchesse and Madame 
de Chartres, borrowed pipes from the Swiss Guards one 
night and tasted the delights of smoking — an experiment 
which procured them a sound scolding from the king, to 
whose bedroom the subtle odour had penetrated ; and it 
was at Marly that Louis himself unbent one memorable 
Twelfth Night. For ' when the cake appeared, the king 
exhibited a joy which seemed to call for imitation. Not 
content with crying " la reine boit," he beat upon his 
plate with spoon and fork, and made everyone follow his 
example, which caused an extraordinary din, and was 
repeated several times during the supper' — a piece of 
solemn gaiety which Saint- Simon cynically ascribes to 
the king's delight at hearing of the death of Barbesieux, 
a minister who had been forced upon him, and whom, 
consequently, he had never liked. 

The restricted accommodation at Marly limited the 
number of guests. Princes of the Blood and the great 
court officials came by right ; others were expected to 



VEESAILLES 21 

ask for an invitation ; and to be ' of the Marlys ' was 
the hall-mark of distinction and the ambition of every 
aspirant to power and influence. The form of appli- 
cation was simple : the petitioner presented himself in 
person with the words, ' Sire, Marly ' ; and, though 
refusals were frequent, the king liked people to persist 
in asking, even though they had no chance of success. 

Marly was but a few miles from Versailles, and the 
distance was soon traversed ; indeed, the king would 
often go over for a walk in the gardens or a supper in 
the Chateau, at times other than those of the regular 
visits. But there was one other journey which he 
rarely omitted, and which was a more formidable under- 
taking — namely, the annual visit to Fontainebleau in 
autumn. This entailed a removal of the whole Court, 
and was an expensive business. Some of the impedimenta 
went by road, the rest by canal. The king himself often 
broke the journey at Sceaux, the home of his favourite 
son the Due du Maine, or at Petit-Bourg, the estate of 
the Due d'Antin, Madame de Montespan's eldest and only 
legitimate child. But on occasions he would cover the 
whole distance without a stop, a matter of six hours at 
least, in a heavy coach and over rough roads. The ladies 
who were privileged to share the royal carriage often 
found the journey worse than tedious ; and it was not 
without good reason that Madame de Maintenon invari- 
ably travelled in her own private coach. For no sooner 
were the wheels in motion than Louis would produce a 
hamper of eatables — preserved fruits, sweetmeats, and 
other delicacies — and press them, without cessation, on 
his companions, though he never partook of them himself. 
To refuse was to give offence ; and, hungry or satiated, 
well or ill, the unhappy guests had to regale themselves 
on the unwholesome fare, with forced enthusiasm, till the 
gates of Fontainebleau at last brought relief. 



22 THE GEEAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

Versailles, Marly, and Fontainebleau — these then were 
the three places round which court life centred, Versailles, 
as the official residence of the monarch, being the most 
important of the three. And, vast as it was, Versailles 
was never empty; for, apart from the army of men and 
women who were permanently attached to the Court, 
there was a constant stream of visitors. Louis liked to 
flatter himself with the thought that he was living in the 
midst of his nobility, and he expected even the less con- 
spicuous members of the aristocracy to pay their court 
at Versailles at least once in the year. He had a keen 
eye, and a royal memory for faces ; and, as he walked 
along the Galerie des Glaces, he took in at a glance all 
those who were present. Habitual absentees were noted, 
and their remissness sometimes cost them dear. For, 
when any of such had a favour to ask (and all petitions 
passed through the king's hands), Louis would say 
icily, ' I do not know him ' ; and the request would be 
negatived. 

But such absentees were not very numerous. There 
were, it is true, always some people who cherished a feel- 
ing of independence, or genuinely preferred the seclusion 
of their own homes to the aimless activity of the Court. 
But they were few. Louis, by diminishing the local 
importance of the seigneur, had done much to destroy the 
attractions of a country life. Moreover, the very exis- 
tence of Versailles had helped to foster that gregarious 
instinct which in our own day has given to our great 
towns their fatal power of fascination ; and the French 
nobility flocked to the palace much as our own peasants 
are flocking to London, content to endure the cramped 
quarters and the minor discomforts of life if only they 
might share in the stir and bustle of the crowd and feast 
their eyes on the continual pageant. Hence the typical 
French nobleman of the early eighteenth century, who 



VEESAILLES 23 

read little and loved movement and excitement, began to 
find life in his ancestral chateau intolerably dull. To be 
banished from the Court was the direst fate that could 
befall him, next to death or the Bastille : and though, 
after a long experience of the splendid ennui that reigned 
at Versailles, many a man escaped gladly to the provinces 
for relaxation and refreshment, he soon wearied of the 
simplicity of his surroundings, and was attracted back to 
the glitter and the crowd as if by a magnet. 

But besides the courtiers, who formed the resident or 
floating population of the place, the needy scions of 
decayed houses who had come to push their fortunes, and 
the county families who came and went, there was a whole 
army of servants and dependents, of whom a word may 
not be out of place. 

The buildings and their precincts, the parks, gardens, 
and State apartments, were guarded by Swiss soldiers, 
honest, but not always very intelligent fellows, as an 
anecdote related by Madame, in her letters, will show. 
Shortly after her marriage with Monsieur, the king's 
brother, Madame, who loved the open air and unconven- 
tional amusements, was seized with a desire to take a 
moonlight walk in the gardens of Versailles. Accordingly 
she slipped out of her rooms and had reached the garden, 
when she was stopped abruptly by the Suisse on duty. 
Here is what passed, in her own words. * " My good man," 
I said, " let me take my walk ; I am the wife of the 
king's brother." " So the king has a brother ? " said he. 
" What ? " I replied, " you don't know that ! How long 
have you been in his Majesty's service ? " " Thirty years." 
" What ! and you don't yet know that the king has a 
brother ? Why, you have to present arms to him when 
he passes ! " "I dare say," he replied ; " when they beat 
the drum, I present arms ; but it makes no difference to 
me for whom. I have never asked whether the king has 



24 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

a wife, or children, or a brother. I don't bother my head 
about such things." I laughed heartily,' concludes 
Madame, ' and so did the king when I told him the 
story.' 

The command of these Suisses, commonly called the 
Cent-Suisses, was a much-coveted post, and ranked as 
inferior only to the great offices of the royal household. 
But besides these stolid sentries there was another body 
of Suisses employed for less reputable purposes. Louis, 
who mingled little with his courtiers, had, nevertheless, 
an itch to know the minutest details of their public 
haunts and private ways, which was strangely out of 
keeping with his usually gentlemanlike feelings ; and he 
had authorised his chief valets, Bontemps, and subse- 
quently Bloin, to enlist a number of these foreigners who, 
though wearing the king's uniform, were to take their 
orders only from the king's body-servants. Their func- 
tion was to act as spies, at Marly as well as at Versailles 
and Fontainebleau. Morning, noon, and night, they 
prowled about the stairs, the passages, and the lavatories ; 
patrolled the gardens and hid in the bushes ; noticed 
where people went to and how long they stayed there ; 
listened to private conversations, and dogged the steps of 
suspects ; and reported all this unedifying gossip to their 
masters, who, in turn, retailed it to the king. And so 
successfully was this system of espionage carried out that 
the Court only half realised how much it was kept under 
surveillance ; and many a man found his career blocked 
without being able to guess the cause. For, though the 
king frequently acted on the information he thus received, 
he never betrayed either his knowledge or its source. 

Opposite the southern wing of the palace, and to-day 
serving as a military hospital, stood a large, square build- 
ing, capable of lodging fifteen hundred inhabitants and 
called the Grand Gommun. The upper storeys contained 



VERSAILLES 25 

the appartements of the superior domestics, pensioned 
servants, and sometimes even decayed gentlemen ; the 
ground floor was occupied by kitchens, pantries, and 
cellars ; for it was from here that the privileged few, such 
as the Dauphin and the king's grandsons, who received 
their board as well as lodging at Versailles, obtained 
their food. From here the king's meals were carried 
daily, in state, preceded by two guards, an usher, head- 
waiter, gentleman of the pantry, and others, and followed 
by two guards, whose duty it was to see that nobody 
approached the royal dishes. 

The service of the interior of the palace was per- 
formed by an army of lackeys who were known, from 
their livery, as the gargons hleus, and whose insolence was 
often a source of annoyance to the less distinguished 
courtiers. At the head of this domestic hierarchy were 
the four premiers valets de chamhre of the king, who 
were by no means the least important officials at 
Versailles. Louis, in despite of the proverb, was a hero 
to his own valets. ' He treated them well,' says Saint- 
Simon; 'especially those of the private apartments. It 
was amongst them that he felt most at his ease, and he 
talked familiarly to them, especially to the superior ones. 
They were thus constantly in a position to do people 
a good or a bad turn ; consequently even the most 
powerful ministers honoured them publicly ; as also did 
the Princes of the Blood and the Bastards,^ not to speak 
of the less exalted personages. The insolence of most 
of them was great, and of such a kind that you had 
either to learn how to avoid it, or else to endure it with 
patience.' 

Noyert, Bloin, and Bontemps, all had a finger in the 
secret history of the time. The last named of the three 
carried imitation of his master to a laughable extreme. 
' I,e. the Due du Maine and the Comte de Toulouse. 



26 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

He was a widower, but his house was kept by a certain 
Mile, de la Koche, who lived with him and governed 
him completely. She never appeared in public, and 
seldom at his private entertainments ; but nobody doubted 
that she was his Maintenon, and that, in humble imita- 
tion of his royal master, he had married her secretly. 
' Though boorish and brusque,' says Saint-Simon, * he 
was respectful and knew his place. He had access to 
the king at all hours, and always by the back-doors. 
Through him passed all the secret messages and private 
letters to and from the king. It was enough to spoil 
a man, who for fifty years had enjoyed this intimacy, and 
who had the Court at his feet, from the royal children 
and the ministers downwards. But he never forgot his 
place. He never did harm to anybody and always used 
his credit to oblige. Many people owed him their fortune, 
but he never allowed them to allude to it. He procured 
favours for the sole pleasure of doing a kindness, and 
was, all his life, a father to the poor and a protector of 
the afflicted and disgraced, even though he did not know 
them personally ; and was, perhaps, the best man of his 
time, with clean hands and a disinterested devotion to 
duty. Consequently his death, in 1701, caused general 
and genuine grief at the Court and in Paris.' 



27 



CHAPTEE II 

LIFE AT COUET 

War and peace — The courtier's interests and ambitions — Intrigues for 
precedence — The daily routine — Games and amusements — Ennui. 

Life at Versailles, which looked so attractive from the 
outside, was generally found, on closer acquaintance, to 
lead to mental stagnation and physical fatigue ; and the 
courtier who had been drawn into the pageant in pursuit 
of wealth or excitement soon discovered that he was ex- 
pected to pay for the gratification of his wishes by the 
sacrifice of his personal liberty. For, once inside the 
magic circle, he was reduced very much to the position of 
a schoolboy ; his occupations, his interests, and even his 
amusements were no longer a matter for his individual 
choice, but were regulated for him by an inexorable dis- 
cipline and a harassing etiquette. He almost ceased to be 
an independent agent, and became part of a system which 
demanded the surrender of his mind and body. Louis, 
who settled most things for his subjects, had a clear idea 
of the part which the nobility was destined to play in the 
new order of things. According to the royal scheme of 
life the whole duty of a grand seigneur consisted in serving 
the king's person in time of peace and fighting with the 
king's armies in time of war. There was no compulsion 
to do either; but, if a man of distinction sulked in his 
provincial chateau, the intendants stirred up a world of 
trouble for him ; or, if he quitted the service without 



28 THE GEE AT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

some definite and cogent reason, such as wounds or sick- 
ness, the fact was noted against him. ' There's another 
leaving us ! ' the King would say irritably, and the 
desertion was not easily forgiven. 

The long and frequent wars, which were a feature of 
the reign, gave ample opportunity for the winning of 
spurs ; and nearly every nobleman celebrated the advent 
of manhood by serving in a campaign or two. The very 
methods of warfare then in vogue seem to have been 
devised to meet the requirements of court life ; for, with 
the first onset of winter, the rival armies withdrew to 
permanent quarters and inactivity, and the young warriors 
were able to return to Versailles in time for the festivities 
of the winter season, and display in the ball-room the 
laurels they had gathered on the battle-field. But, as a 
career offering an outlet for talent and a field for legiti- 
mate ambitions, service in the king's army was falhng 
into disrepute. The great days were over, and the prizes 
no longer went habitually to the deserving. A brilliant 
action, such as Fortune occasionally threw in the way of 
her favourites, was still certain of a reward ; but patient 
application and the more solid qualities were mostly over- 
looked. Backstairs influences and court intrigues settled 
promotion, and the great commands went to the successful 
wirepullers. Extravagance, too, was impairing efficiency 
and destroying the wholesome traditions of the great 
captains. The evil example of the Court had spread to 
the army. Wealthy regimental officers set a standard of 
luxury, even on active service, which ruined their poorer 
comrades, and the great review at Compiegne in 1698, 
where for three weeks the army kept open table for the 
king and his Court, had left behind it, in many cases, a 
crushing load of private debt. Nor was there much glory 
to be won. The incompetence of the marshals and a 
general slackening of discipline and morals made service 



LIFE AT COURT 29 

under Vendome or Villeroy a very different thing from the 
triumphant warfare of Conde and Turenne. Still, war 
was the traditional pursuit of the ancienne noblesse ; and, 
if they received hard knocks from Marlborough and 
Eugene, the young warriors were never deficient in that 
quality which is the first virtue of the savage and the last 
of the decadent aristocrat, namely, physical courage. 

But for those who had no taste or aptitude for war, 
and for all in times of peace, there was a great dearth of 
occupation. It is well to remember at the outset from 
how many of the rational interests of a leisured class the 
French nobility was explicitly shut off. Politics especially 
were a forbidden subject. The monarchy had had a hard 
struggle for power with the great nobles. It had triumphed 
in the end, and Louis XIV had placed its supremacy 
beyond dispute. But he was haunted by the memory 
of past dangers, and the system which he elaborated was 
based on the exclusion of the great families from all posts 
of political importance. The empty honour of great court 
offices was still reserved for them ; but the ministers and 
their subordinates were, with few exceptions, chosen from 
the humbler ranks of the petite nohlesse. Such ministers 
were entirely dependent on the king, and a Louvois or 
a Chamillart could be dismissed at a moment's notice 
without offending powerful territorial influences. Outside 
the charmed circle any interest in political subjects was 
severely discouraged. Affairs of State concerned only the 
king and his Ministers : officially, everything was in the 
hands of an all-wise and beneficent ruler, and public dis- 
cussion or criticism of his actions savoured of impertinence. 
And to make sure that the royal wishes in this respect 
were carried out private letters were opened in the post, 
their contents examined, and compromising passages copied 
out and submitted to the king. No doubt, in the intimacy 
of private life, friends would shake their heads and discuss 



30 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

the faults of the government ; but the consciousness that 
they were cut off from all power of influencing affairs, and 
from all responsibility for the future, did certainly tend to 
divert men's minds from the dangers that lay ahead. Of 
what use was it to study the political problems of the 
day, when knowledge was regarded as a dangerous posses- 
sion, and when to think differently from the king and his 
Ministers almost amounted to treason ? 

The fate of Vauban was a melancholy example of the 
dangers that attended any officious attempt at interference. 
Of all the State departments none stood in greater need 
of reform than the Treasury. The system of taxation 
was not only oppressive but sometimes positively immoral. 
In 1707, for example, a tax was imposed on baptisms and 
marriages ; and, though it had to be withdrawn in face of 
the popular outcry, the mere fact that such an absurdity 
should have been thought of shows how little forethought 
or common-sense was brought to bear on the financial 
problems of the country. And, if the taxes were oppres- 
sive, the manner of collecting them was ruinous. Only 
a portion of the revenue actually paid found its way into 
the royal coffers ; the rest went to enrich a whole army of 
middlemen and agents, who thus contrived to batten on 
the misery of the country.^ 

Marshal Vauban, the hero of a hundred sieges, whose 
character and services had won him a special place in the 
esteem of the king, had long been distressed by the 
misery of the peasants and the financial ruin which he 
saw impending over his country. He had a head for 
statistics ; and for twenty years, during which he had 
travelled through France in all directions, he had made 
careful notes of the value of land and commerce and 
industry, the nature of the taxes imposed, and the manner 

' Saint- Simon estimates that between 1689 and 1700 the gens d'affaires 
made a profit of 82 million francs. 



LIFE AT COURT 31 

of collecting them. Where he could not visit in person 
he procured accurate information from competent people ; 
and the final result of his labours was a book, in which 
he proposed the substitution of a single impost, to be 
called ' the Eoyal tithe,' for the heterogeneous duties 
that were ruining agriculture and paralysing trade, and 
a simple method of collecting it that would do away with 
the middleman. By this system he calculated that the 
taxpayer would pay much less while the Treasury would 
receive much more. But his proposals created a panic 
among the vested interests. Ohamillart, the Minister of 
Finance, an honest but not very capable man, took alarm ; 
and the king received the marshal and his book more 
than coldly. Any independent interest in the affairs of 
the country cancelled with Louis XIV the memory of 
past services. Vauban was lectured for his presumption, 
and made to feel that he had completely lost the royal 
favour. Heartbroken at the failure of his plans and the 
disgrace into which he had fallen, he died a few months 
afterwards, unnoticed and unlamented by the king to 
whose service he had devoted his life and his talents. Is 
it surprising that the more prudent and worldly-wise 
declined to burn their fingers, and preferred to leave such 
dangerous topics severely alone ? 

Nor was literary activity, or learning of any sort, 
encouraged. There had indeed been a golden period 
during which Moliere, La Fontaine, and Eacine had 
added lustre to the Court under royal patronage. But 
Louis had never possessed any real taste for literature. 
He had no love of knowledge for its own sake, and he 
eschewed books. Even on matters of religion, which in 
later years became his special hobby, he was unusually 
ignorant ; and his piety took the form of a relentless war 
on all independent thought. Criticism and new ideas he 
regarded as dangerous, and subversive of the State. Even 



32 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

history had to be written, not with the object of arriving 
at truth, but as a means of extolhng the existing regime ; 
and rehgious speculation was branded as heresy and 
burned by the hangman unless it squared with the private 
views of Madame de Maintenon or the king's confessor. 
In such an atmosphere literature was not likely to flourish 
or genius to thrive; and the itch for writing and criticism, 
forcibly repressed, had to find relief in private memoirs, 
or in those libellous and often scurrilous songs which 
flooded Paris, and which, in the end, probably did more to 
destroy the prestige of the monarchy than any amount of 
open and healthy criticism. 

Thus cut off from two of the most rational interests 
of life, the active brains of the French Court were 
compelled to seek their stimulus or satisfaction in other 
directions. They found it usually in petty intrigues, 
for which the system of government organised by 
Louis XIV afforded ample opportunities. Theoretically 
the king was the sole dispenser of rewards ; practically 
he was in the hands of a few individuals, each jealous of 
the other, each anxious to secure or increase his or her 
hold and to keep possible rivals at a distance, and each 
compelled to exercise extreme caution. For Louis was 
very jealous of his independence, and, at the mere 
suspicion that he was being used as a puppet, he was 
capable of breaking loose and upsetting the most carefully 
laid plans. 

This inner ring was composed of the people who had 
frequent access to the king and the consequent power of 
influencing his decisions ; members of the Eoyal family, 
including Madame de Maintenon, most powerful of all ; 
the Ministers whose official duties brought them into 
daily contract with their master ; the great court officials 
who had the private entrees ; certain individuals whose 
services or character had won them the king's personal 



LIFE AT COURT 33 

friendship ; and, last but not least, the confidential body- 
servants who often had the chance of putting in a word 
that might make or mar a fortune. This select body 
practically controlled the royal patronage, and distributed 
the prizes which the courtier coveted — the sinecures that 
enriched without effort, the pensions, and the offices of 
dignity and distinction. : The aspirant for wealth or 
favour had therefore to approach his object through one 
or other of these accredited channels. The game required 
much skill and an intimate knowledge of the weaker side 
of human nature. There were rivals to outwit and pre- 
judices to conciliate. It was necessary to form useful 
alliances with the people who were, to use a slang phrase, 
' in the know,' and to gauge accurately the force of those 
under-currents which were continually moving beneath 
the apparently smooth surface. To hail a rising star 
prematurely, or to cling too long to a falling minister, 
might spell failure. Constant watchfulness, a nice judg- 
ment, and early information of the most trivial personal 
incidents were essential to success. A royal frown or 
a sarcastic phrase might be only the effect of a momentary 
pique; but it might also be the precursor of a storm 
that would sweep away existing landmarks. Both were, 
anyhow, part of the situation, and it was important to 
know them. Hence, gossip and speculation were always 
rife : all the more so because, in a clever but idle com- 
munity, such personal incidents were the chief topic of 
interest and the main incentive to wit : and, as a con- 
sequence, conversation sparkled but charity was at a 
discount. 

But it was not only a competition for place and wealth 
that set the Court intriguing. Whenever people with 
leisure and money are cut off from the actualities of life and 
the opportunities of useful service, questions of rank, privi- 
lege, and precedence, assume an unnatural importance. 



34 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

Louis XIV. was an adept in the art of enhancing the 
value of trifles and creating distinctions which whetted 
the personal ambitions of his followers. To be invited to 
Marly, to walk fifth instead of eighth in a procession, 
to enter the royal carriage, to be seated where others 
stood — these were privileges which formed the absorbing 
interest of lives that were free from the more sordid 
lust of wealth. Such distinctions, if they could not be 
won by a coup de main, were not beyond the reach of 
a slow and subtle diplomacy ; and as much ingenuity and 
forethought were often expended on their attainment as 
go to the making of an international treaty or the passing 
of an important measure. 

Court etiquette was, like the British Constitution, a 
network of complicated but unwritten rules that founded 
their authority on precedent; consequently an accurate 
knowledge of precedents was essential to a man who 
meant to use the laws of procedure for his own aggrandise- 
ment. Precedents were often created on the spur of the 
moment and without any thought of the future. When 
Henry IV, for example, after the fall of the Ligue, received 
the Spanish Ambassador at Monceaux, he led his guest 
into the gardens which he had just constructed and of 
which he was somewhat proud, and, very naturally, put 
on his hat. The ambassador, who, according to Spanish 
etiquette (which differed from the French), was accustomed 
to cover himself when the king did so, followed his 
example. Henry IV was offended ; but, not wishing to 
express his vexation openly to the ambassador, he signed 
to M. le Prince, M. de Mayenne, and M. d'lfepernon, who 
happened to be the only great noblemen present, to put 
on their hats also. This apparently trivial incident had, 
from the Court point of view, quite important consequences ; 
for, as a result, the three noblemen in question, and their 
descendants, secured the right of remaining covered in the 



LIFE AT COUET 35 

presence of royalty. Nor was this all. The other Princes 
of the Blood could not be left in a position inferior to that 
of a mere nobleman like M. de Mayenne ; and finally the 
cardinals, as being superior to all others in rank, claimed 
and received the same privilege. Such an episode v^as 
full of suggestiveness for a student of court history, and 
served to show how much could be made out of a lucky 
accident. 

The great object, therefore, of an ambitious man was 
to seize an opportunity, when the king was off his guard 
and rivals absent, to secure some concession which might 
be construed into a precedent and made to cover cases that 
were never originally contemplated, M. de Vaudemont, 
taking advantage of an infirmity which made it difficult 
for him to walk or stand, gradually accustomed people to 
see him seated at Marly (where the rules of etiquette were 
relaxed) in the presence of his superiors in rank and even 
of the royal princes, and afterwards tried, though un- 
successfully, to convert this concession to his weakness 
into a permanent right ; and the Lorraines deliberately 
falsified a piece of tapestry, representing an historical 
scene, in order that they might use it as evidence in 
support of certain claims to precedence which they had 
put forward as foreign princes. 

And if ambitious men were constantly striving to 
exalt themselves and their families by surreptitious means, 
the most sober and unambitious were equally determined 
to resist such encroachments and defend their own 
privileges. Hardly anybody, however modest and un- 
assuming, was indifferent to these questions, and even 
people who were not personally concerned took sides and 
followed the struggle with passionate interest. The 
following scene, which is typical of the age, will serve to 
illustrate the excitement which such subjects provoked. 

The year was 1706 : the time, a summer evening about 



36 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

eight ; and the place, Versailles. For several hours the 
king and his council had been assembled in secret session 
to decide an issue which had, for months past, deeply 
stirred all classes in the Court, but which chiefly con- 
cerned the Due de Eohan. Daguesseau, Chamillart, the 
chancellor, and the Due de Bourgogne, had all spoken 
in weighty terms befitting the gravity of the occasion. 
Outside the tension was extreme ; the antechambers, the 
passages, even the Cour de Marbre, were packed with 
people eagerly waiting for the momentous decision and 
speculating on the nature of the verdict. At last the 
king pronounced the award ; the council rose, the doors 
were thrown open, and the Due de Bourgogne was the 
first to come out. The Due de Bohan, pale with the 
prolonged suspense, had stationed himself near the door ; 
he stepped up to the prince and asked his fate. The 
prince looked embarrassed and made no reply. ' At least,' 
said the duke, ' tell me whether the case has been decided.' 
* Oh, as far as that is concerned, yes,' replied the prince, 
' and irretrievably, without any possibility of appeal.' 
Then, turning to the chancellor, he asked him whether 
he might repeat the verdict. The chancellor assured 
him that there could be no objection. ' In that case, sir,' 
said the prince, ' I may tell you that you have won on 
every point, and I am delighted to be the bearer of the 
good news.' 

As the first word of the decision became known, the 
antechamber and the adjoining rooms were filled with 
shouts of joy and triumph, taken up and repeated in the 
Cour de Marbre by the waiting throng, who for once, in 
the enthusiasm of the moment, forgot the respect due to 
the place and gave vent to their suppressed excitement. 
' We have won ! ' they cried, ' and they have lost, hurrah ! ' 
And the Due de Bohan could scarcely force his way 
through the crowd of his supporters, all anxious to grasp 



LIFE AT COUET 37 

his hand or press him to their hearts, in time to offer his 
thanks to the king as he came out of the palace for 
a walk in the gardens. 

And what was the great cause which had set the whole 
of Versailles in a ferment ? The story is too long a one 
to give in detail ; but, briefly, the question at issue was 
this : whether, as M. de Guemene, the head of a junior 
branch of the family, maintained, only the eldest son of 
the Due de Eohan was entitled to the name of Eohan, or 
whether, as the father claimed, all his sons were privileged 
to bear it ; and by a majority of votes the council had 
decided in favour of the duke. 

Such personal questions figured very largely in the 
lives of the ancienne noblesse, and perhaps it may be well 
to give a few more concrete examples. One of the best 
prelates of the time was M. de Noyon, Bishop of Orleans, 
' a man of medium height,' says Saint-Simon, ' stout, 
with a red face, an aquiline nose, fine eyes, and an air of 
candour and benevolence that captivated at first sight and 
grew on acquaintance. He had passed his youth at Court ; 
but his life had been so pure that no one, old or young, 
dared to risk an improper jest in his presence.' He was 
rich, but simple in his tastes, and gave largely in charity ; 
and his episcopal income he devoted entirely to good 
works. He spent at least six months of the year in his 
diocese, was a careful and discerning administrator, and 
displayed a tolerance which was rare at the time. His 
intervention had saved the Huguenots of Orleans from 
the horrors of the dragonnades, and he was universally 
beloved. The king, too, liked and respected him, and 
often regretted his prolonged absence in his diocese. At 
Court he held the honourable post of chief almoner. 
This office gave him an official place at the prie-dieu ; 
but for the rest of the service he was unprovided for and 
had to stand during the sermon like the other bishops. 



38 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

At sermons there had been originally three official places 
immediately behind the king ; one on the right for the 
grand-chamberlain, another on the left for the first 
gentleman of the chamber, and a third, behind them, for 
the captain of the guard. But the king had specially 
created a fourth place, immediately behind the grand- 
chamberlain, for Guitry, who had subsequently been killed 
at the passage of the Rhine. This place the Bishop of 
Orleans had gradually appropriated for himself. Had 
anybody else attempted to annex it, there would have 
been a general outcry ; but the bishop was universally 
liked and respected, and nobody said a word. Presumably 
the king did not notice what was happening behind him, 
and remained unaware of the encroachment. All went 
well till the spring of 1696, when the Lenten sermons 
were preached by a certain Pere Seraphin. The king 
was much struck by the preacher, and, as was his way on 
such occasions, he wished everybody to hear the discourses. 
Absentees were noted, and two of the most important, 
Vendome and the Due de la Eochefoucauld, were re- 
proached for their lack of devotion. Vendome replied 
bluntly that he wasn't going to listen to a man who could 
say what he liked without fear of contradiction ; at which 
the king laughed. De la Rochefoucauld, who was more 
of a courtier, adopted a different line of defence. He said 
that he could not bring himself to beg for a seat, like the 
humblest of mortals, from the officer who distributed 
them; to find himself compelled to apply early if he 
wanted a good place ; to wait a long time before the 
sermon began ; and to sit wherever he was told to. 
Thereupon the king at once allotted to him the chair 
which had once been Guitry's, and which Monsieur 
d' Orleans had come to regard as his own by prescriptive 
right. The bishop was furious ; but, not daring to 
complain openly to the king, he eased his mind by 



LIFE AT COURT 39 

quarrelling with De la Eochefoucauld, who happened to 
be one of his oldest and most intimate friends. The 
Court took sides, and the majority, including the Lorraine 
coterie, favoured the prelate. Monsieur, who was a tool 
in the hands of the Chevalier de Lorraine, was called in 
to aid, but without effect. The king tried to recall the 
bishop to reason ; but neither the royal persuasion nor 
the entreaties of De la Eochefoucauld, who was really 
grieved at this breach of a long friendship, were of any 
avail. The bishop was inflexible, and seeing that his 
case was hopeless he retired in a huff to his diocese. 

In the following year he was obliged to return to Court 
to take up his duties as almoner, and his arrival renewed 
the scandal. At his first audience he threw himself at 
the king's feet and protested, with little dignity, that he 
would rather die than witness the degradation of an 
office which he had held for thirty-four years. De la 
Eochefoucauld, too, interceded on his behalf, and begged 
to be allowed to forego a privilege which he had accepted 
in complete ignorance that it was claimed by the chief 
almoner. But the king, who did not like to alter his 
decisions, still less to have them criticised, was obstinate ; 
and, though habitually courteous, even when angry, he 
used on this occasion some strong words, saying that, ' if 
the decision lay between the bishop and a valet, he would 
decide in favour of the valet.' M. d'Orleans came away 
from the interview overwhelmed with grief and retired 
once more to his diocese. 

And there the matter might have ended, had not the 
king's respect for the bishop proved stronger than his 
resentment. He looked about for some means of re- 
conciliation, and, when the important see of Metz fell 
vacant, he appointed to it the nephew of M. d'Orleans. 
The bishop was delighted ; and, to crown his joy, a chair 
next to, but below, that of M. de la Eochefoucauld, was 



40 THE GREA.T DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

allotted to the post of first almoner. He returned to the 
sunshine of Court, and became once more fast friends with 
De la Eochefoucauld. 

Another story, almost as illuminating, is related of the 
same family. The Due de Coislin, brother of the Bishop 
of Orleans, was chiefly noted for his excessive politeness ; 
a politeness which was shown to all, irrespective of rank, 
and which sometimes bordered on the ridiculous. One 
day he happened to be at the Sorbonne where the second 
son of the Due de Bouillon, who was being educated for 
the priesthood, was to deliver a thesis in public. On such 
occasions it was customary for friends of the family 
concerned to put in a complimentary appearance, and, as 
the Bouillons were a powerful clan, there was a large and 
fashionable gathering, including M. le Prince and other 
Princes of the Blood. Coislin happened to be the only 
duke present ; but, as he was at that time junior member 
of his order, he placed himself modestly at the end of the 
ducal row, leaving several places vacant between himself 
and the corner where the prelates began, in case any of 
his seniors should come in later. Scarcely was he seated 
when Novion, premier president of the Paris Parliament, 
came in with a following of presidents a mortier. Now 
the presidents of Parliament were at that time engaged in 
a dispute with the dukes over a question of precedence in 
Parliament, and Novion, knowing Coislin's reputation for 
courtesy, and finding him the only duke present, imagined 
that he had secured a favourable opportunity for establish- 
ing a useful precedent. Accordingly he slipped into the 
ducal row and sat down on one of the vacant chairs 
between Coislin and the bishops. But he had mistaken 
his man. Coislin was stung into action ; picking up his 
chair and planting it suddenly in front of Novion he sat 
down firmly upon it, and wedged the unhappy president 
so tightly in that he was unable to move hand or foot. 



LIFE AT COURT 41 

The thesis was interrupted, and the eyes of the audience 
were turned on this unusual spectacle ; but Coislin refused 
to budge from his post of vantage until M. le Prince had 
promised on behalf of Novion (whose word the angry peer 
refused to accept) that the offence should not be repeated. 
Then at last the victim was released, and slunk away, 
followed by a scornful ' off with you ' from his conqueror. 

It is instructive to note how impervious Coislin's 
contemporaries (not usually lacking in a sense of humour) 
were to the comic side of such an episode. The four 
Princes of the Blood, and all the important people who 
had witnessed or heard of the affair, paid visits of con- 
gratulation to him without delay ; on the following 
morning the king complimented him on his presence of 
mind ; and, years after, Saint-Simon related the occurrence 
as a creditable episode in a life that was otherwise partly 
blemished by excessive civility. 

Nor were these wrangles over precedence hushed 
even in the presence of death. Mme. de Saint-Simon, 
mother of the memoir-writer, though only distantly 
related to the Condes, had been invited by M. le Prince to 
follow the body of his daughter. Mile, de Conde, to 
the grave, in the company of Mile. d'Enghien, sister of 
the deceased. As Mme. de Saint- Simon was leaving the 
house to enter the mourning coach, the Duchesse de 
Chatillon, her junior, brushed past her, jumped into the 
carriage, and planted herself in the post of honour next to 
Mile. d'Enghien. At this, Mme. de Saint- Simon refused 
to enter the carriage and begged Mile. d'Enghien either 
to secure for her her proper place or to allow her to 
withdraw. Mme. de Chatillon replied that, though she 
was junior in point of rank to Mme. de Saint-Simon, 
she was more nearly related to the deceased, and that, on 
this and similar occasions, relationship and not rank 
determined precedence. At last Desgranges, who was 



42 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

superintending the arrangements, was appealed to and 
decided the squabble in favour of Mme. de Saint-Simon; 
and the cortege started. But he had to interfere once 
more to prevent Mme. de Chatillon's carriage, which 
was following behind, from forcing its way into the pro- 
cession in front of its rival. Public opinion rightly 
condemned the conduct of Mme. de Chatillon ; but it 
was too much accustomed to similar battles, waged over 
corpses, to find Mme. de Saint-Simon's resentment wanting 
either in dignity or in respect for the dead. 

These questions of personal aggrandisement or self- 
defence were the most serious of the courtier's occupations. 
The rest of his life was divided between the performance 
of his semi-official duties and an attempt to kill time. 

His duties began with the king's awakening and 
ended with the royal coucher, and many of them were 
connected with details of the toilet for which we demand 
the utmost privacy. But the French monarchs did not 
know what privacy was. From the cradle to the grave they 
dressed and undressed, prayed, ate, and took medicine in 
public. * The princes in this country,' wrote Madame, 
' unfortunately cannot take a step without the whole 
world knowing it ' ; and nearly a century later, at the 
birth of his first child, Louis XVI had to fight his way 
through the promiscuous crowd, which had gathered in 
the queen's bedroom, to force open the windows and let 
in a little reviving air. 

Louis XIV was awaked every morning at 8 o'clock 
by the premier valet de chambre on duty, who had slept 
the night in the king's chamber. The chief doctor and 
the royal surgeon entered at the same time, rubbed him 
down, and often changed his shirt. At 8.15 the grand- 
chamberlain was summoned, together with the first 
gentleman of the chamber for the year, and the privileged 
few who had the grandes entrees came in with them. 



LIFE AT COURT 43 

The chamberlain drew the curtains of the bed and 
presented the holy water. This was the opportunity for 
any of the grandes e^itrees who had something to say to, 
or ask of, the king, to advance and make his request. 
Ordinarily they were only there for a few moments and 
then withdrew. The chamberlain next handed the king 
the Office of the Saint-Esprit, and he and the first gentle- 
man of the chamber passed into the council-room. 
When he had repeated the short service the king called 
them back. The chamberlain handed him his dressing- 
gown, and the secondes entrees were introduced. A few 
moments afterwards, what was called la chambre was 
admitted, that is to say the general body of courtiers 
who had been waiting in the (Eil de Boeuf — first, the most 
distinguished, and afterwards the rank and file ; they 
found the king putting on his stockings, for ' he did 
almost everything for himself with ease and skill.' Every 
other day he shaved before a hand-mirror held in front of 
him, wearing a short wig, without which he never 
appeared in public, not even in bed on the days when 
he took medicine. While dressing he conversed with his 
personal friends on general topics, such as hunting, and 
occasionally said a word to some of the others. The 
toilet completed, he said his prayers at the ruelle, a low 
wooden balustrade which railed o& the bed from the rest 
of the room ; all the clergy present knelt, the laity 
remained standing ; and finally he passed into his cabinet. 
The courtier's next duty was to wait in the Galerie 
des Glaces till the council-meeting was over, and accom- 
pany the king to Mass in the chapel. During the latter 
half of the reign piety had become the fashion ; but it 
was an enforced and official piety, and the ladies, who 
thronged the tribunes, used to place lighted candles in 
front of them, nominally in order to read their office 
books but really to make sure that their presence was 



44 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

observed. Brissac, major of the body-guards, once played 
these fausses devotes a fine trick. The king was expected 
to come to the Salut which followed the usual evening 
service. The guards were posted and the ladies all in 
their places, when, towards the close of the evening 
service, Brissac appeared alone in the king's tribune, 
raised his baton, and cried, ' Guards of the king, retire 
and withdraw to your rooms ! The king is not coming.' 
Immediately the guards withdrew, the ladies whispered 
to one another, the little candles were extinguished, and 
all the fair worshippers, with the exception of the Duchesse 
de Guiche, Mme. de Dangeau, and a few others, beat 
a retreat. Meanwhile Brissac had had the guards stopped 
at the exits of the chapel, and, as soon as the congregation 
had dispersed, he recalled them to their posts. When the 
king arrived he was much astonished to find the tribunes 
empty, and asked the reason. Brissac told him what he 
had done, and the king laughed heartily. The story 
spread rapidly, and Brissac's popularity with the fair sex 
was not enhanced. 

After Mass the next public function was the king's 
dinner, which he ate in his bedroom at a square table in 
front of the central window. There was no brilliant con- 
versation to reward the spectators, for, in his later years, 
the king talked but little ; as Madame remarked, ' it 
seemed as if he had limited himself to a fixed number of 
words in his lifetime and was afraid of exceeding the 
limit.' Occasionally he would exchange a remark with 
one or other of the more important people who were 
immediately behind him, but the rank and file had to be 
content with a silent contemplation of the royal back. 

The afternoons were generally free. The king walked, 
or was wheeled about in his gardens, or, if the weather 
were bad, he spent the time in Madame de Maintenon's 
rooms. The evening brought a renewal of court functions. 



LIFE AT COURT 45 

In winter-time, on three nights of the week, there was 
comedie ; on the other three, a ceremony called apparte- 
ment. It consisted of a gathering of the whole Court in 
the state-rooms, and lasted from seven till ten. First 
there was music ; then tables were set in all the rooms 
for all sorts of games, including billiards. Anyone who 
found the tables occupied might order a fresh one and play 
at what game he liked and with whom he liked. Beyond 
the billiard-room a small room was set apart for refresh- 
ments. The whole suite of apartments was brilliantly 
lighted with lamps and candles. In the early days of 
this ceremony the king used to show himself for a short 
time, and would sometimes join in a game. But for 
many years he had ceased to attend, and passed his 
evenings in Madame de Maintenon's rooms, working with 
his Ministers in turn. Still, he liked the rooms to be full, 
and the courtiers were assiduous in their attendance. 

At ten the king supped, and if he was supping in 
public (as he did several times in the week) it was once 
more the courtier's duty to be present. The supper was 
as formal and melancholy as the dinner, the only point of 
interest being the prodigious amount that the king ate. 
There was, however, one memorable occasion when the 
proceedings were enlivened by a scene. 

All the gold tassels and fringes had mysteriously 
disappeared one night from the furniture in the state 
apartments. The theft was astonishing in a place so 
much frequented and so carefully guarded, and had 
produced a great sensation. Bontemps, the premier 
valet, was in despair ; but, in spite of the most rigorous 
search, the thief remained undiscovered. One evening, 
when the king was seated at supper, a package, about 
the size of a priest's hat and thrown from nobody knew 
where, fell with a thud on one end of the table. Without 
starting, the king half turned his head and remarked 



46 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

quietly, ' I think that must be my tassels.' The day of 
bombs and dynamite was still far distant, but the suspicious 
looking parcel was opened with great care and the king 
was not allowed to touch it. Inside were the missing 
fringes, and, pinned to the outside was a paper with these 
words written in a feminine but obviously disguised hand : 
* Take back your fringes, Bontemps ; the worry is greater 
than the pleasure. I kiss the king's hands.' ' That is 
very insolent,' remarked the king, but nothing further 
was said or done, and it was never known who perpetrated 
the outrage. 

Shortly after supper the king retired to bed. This 
again was a public ceremony, until a bad attack of gout 
in 1705 caused Louis to alter the procedure and limit the 
spectators to those who had the entrees. It had a ritual 
of its own, which gave scope for those trifling marks of 
distinction which Louis knew how to make valuable. 
Foremost amongst these was the bougeoir. Although 
the room in which he undressed was well lit, the 
almoner for the day held a lighted candle whilst the 
king said his prayers. The prayer finished, the almoner 
handed the candle to the premier valet, who carried it 
before the king as he moved to his armchair. The king 
then glanced round, and named aloud one of the company, 
to whom the valet presented the candle. This honour 
was usually reserved for the most distinguished in rank 
or birth ; occasionally it was conferred on others, whose 
age or office gave them a special claim, rarely on ambas- 
sadors, except the Papal Nuncio, and, at the close of the 
reign, the Spanish ambassador. The favoured individual 
took off his gloves, advanced, and held the candle while 
the king got into bed ; then he returned it to the premier 
valet, who passed it on, at will, to some member of the 
petit coueher. 

These were the normal duties of a courtier at Versailles, 



LIFE AT COURT 47 

and they formed a routine which helped to pass the day. 
The rest of his Hfe was spent in a persistent, but often 
fruitless, endeavour to amuse himself. 

The most popular and exciting of outdoor amusements 
was hunting, which did at least conduce to a healthy 
bodily fatigue that must have been welcome. The Bourbons 
were all mighty hunters before the Lord, and the forests 
that surrounded Paris were full of game. Even wolves 
were fairly plentiful, and, in the cold winter of 1696, a 
royal courier was attacked and killed by these animals in 
the Forest of Marly. There were staghounds and wolf- 
hounds, and ample opportunities for following the chase ; 
for, apart from the royal kennels, the Dauphin had packs 
of his own at Meudon, and the Condes hunted the forests 
of Chantilly. The king himself, after an accident to his 
arm in 1683, followed the hunt in a light carriage drawn 
by horses, small but so swift that they were seldom far 
behind the horsemen. The al fresco picnics, which were 
usually part of the entertainment, furnished a welcome 
relief from the monotony of the meals at Versailles. 

Dancing, too, was a favourite form of amusement. 
The State balls at Versailles were rather ponderous and 
formal affairs, in which the magnificence of the dresses 
hardly made up for the absence of gaiety and abandon ; 
but the masked and fancy-dress balls at Marly gave scope 
for pleasing ingenuity and quaint surprises. On one 
occasion it was the Due de Valentinois who carried off 
the palm for originality, disguised as a lady and raised on 
stilts, * high and broad as a tower ' ; advancing to the 
middle of the room he threw open his long cloak, and 
out trooped a band of Italian comedians — Harlequin, 
Scaramouche, Polichinelle, and others. On others the 
Dauphin would enter with his little court, all drolly 
masked and with three or four changes of disguise 
apiece ; or the Duchesse de Bourgogne would appear, 



48 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

coquettishly dressed as a Spanish girl, accompanied by 
Mme. de Dangeau, in an antique German costume, 
and the Comtesse d'Estrees, decked out as a goddess ; 
or the gay Httle Due de Berry would enter as a baron de 
la Grasse, and dance a comic pas seul. And once when 
the Due d'Antin, in the exuberance of his spirits, sent 
M. de Brienne sprawling at the feet of the exiled queen 
of England,^ the accident was greeted with shouts of 
laughter. 

Sometimes a touch of malice mingled with the fun. 
There was, at Marly, a married lady who, although young, 
was beginning to make a name for herself. The Comte 
d'Evreux had been paying her marked attentions, and his 
advances had not been coldly received. The Court, which 
was keenly alive to such things, had taken due note of the 
incipient romance, and discussed it in its witty but cruel 
way. One evening there was a masked ball. In the 
middle of the dance a figure entered wearing a mask with 
four faces, representing, unmistakably, four well-known 
personages at Court. The Comte d'Evreux was one of 
the four. Under the long cloak that concealed the 
dancer's figure was some sort of mechanism which 
enabled him to turn the faces round at will. When 
the new arrival had shown himself sufficiently to attract 
general attention, he went straight up to the lady in 
question, and, turning the Comte d'Evreux's face upon 
her, invited her to dance ; and during the whole of the 
minuet, which he prolonged beyond the ordinary limits, 
he contrived to keep the same face continually turned 
upon her. The point of the jest was too obvious to be 
missed ; the spectators watched and smiled, and the poor 
lady turned all the shades of red. Fortunately her husband 
was not in the room at the time, but she was extremely 
thankful when the ordeal was over. 

' Mary of Modena, wife of James II, 



LIFE AT COURT 49 

A still crueller jest was played on M. de Luxembourg 
by M. le Prince, the most inveterate of practical jokers. 
M. de Luxembourg had a young and pretty wife ; unfor- 
tunately her beauty was not matched by a corresponding 
virtue, and her evil reputation was ' known to everybody 
in France except her husband.' A dearth of dancers had 
procured her an invitation to Marly, and, for the same 
reason, it had been decided that her husband should dance 
too. M. le Prince undertook to provide him with a suit- 
able costume ; and, as the prince was a great authority 
on all matters connected with fetes, M. de Luxembourg 
was highly flattered. But the malicious prince seized the 
opportunity to array his unconscious victim in a wealth 
of gauze and muslin crowned by a gigantic head-piece, 
which symbolised, unmistakably, a wronged husband. In 
this garb he was led into the ball-room, and, a sudden 
shifting of the mask having revealed his identity, he was 
greeted with a burst of laughter. M. de Luxembourg was 
not ' quick at the uptak,' and mistaking the laughter for 
a tribute to the originality of his costume, he bowed to 
right and left, advanced with mincing steps, and lent 
himself to the jest with such complete fatuity that even 
the king, in spite of his usual reserve, could not help 
laughing ; while the wife looked daggers, and M. le 
Prince watched the success of his malice from the 
background. 

"Whilst the Duchesse de Bourgogne lived, her love of 
amusement and the king's devotion to her made dances 
and other festivities of frequent occurrence. Aspirants for 
the royal favour vied with each other in procuring her 
amusement, and even when defeat abroad had cast a 
general gloom over society the round of pleasure did not 
cease. These dances sometimes lasted till 8 a.m., and 
Saint- Simon, whose wife accompanied the duchess on all 
occasions, says that for three weeks in 1700 they were 

E 



50 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

hardly ever out of bed in daylight, and that Ash "Wednesday 
came as a welcome relief. 

Hunting and dancing were comparatively simple 
pleasures; but the simpler pleasures of life only charm 
as a change and relaxation from the drudgery of hard 
work. When they cease to afford a contrast they soon 
cloy, and the unhappy people who are condemned to live 
for pleasure have to look about them for some more 
violent form of excitement. The aiicienne noblesse sought 
and found it in cards. Hocca, lansquenet, and Jiombre 
were the favourite games, and the stakes were often very 
high. Louis, in the heyday of his youth, had gambled 
with the best ; but in his later years he confined himself 
to an occasional game of solitaire or reversi, and never 
touched a card. So far as he could he discouraged high 
play ; but the gambling instinct was strong around him, 
and more than once he was called upon to pay the 
gaming debts of members of his own familj^ Even the 
clergy were not always free from the common taint. The 
Archbishop of Eheims lost two thousand louis in half an 
hour, in a carriage, while nominally following a boar 
hunt. Heavy losses ruined more than one life. Eeine- 
ville, lieutenant of the Guards, who had a career before 
him, was obliged to disappear, and was found years 
afterwards serving as a common trooper in the army 
of the Elector of Bavaria ; Permillac, another officer 
of promise, shot himself through the head in bed ; and, 
in the winter of 1698, if Madame is to be relied on, 
no less than four officers committed suicide for similar 
reasons. 

Cheating was not unknown. Seissac, rich, a man of 
fashion, and at one time master of the wardrobe, was 
caught almost flagrante delicto at the royal table. But 
to an intrepid player much was forgiven ; and, after a 
period of exile in England, he was allowed to return, and 



LIFE AT COUET 51 

became once more an habitue of the card-tables both at 
Versailles and at Marly. 

Ladies were allowed to take still greater liberties. 
The Princesse d'Harcourt, a protegee of Madame de 
Maintenon's, cheated openly and habitually, even at 
Marly and in the presence of the Duchess of Burgundy. 
At the end of a game she would remark complacently 
that there must always be some mistakes at cards, and 
offer to restore any money she had won unfairly, on 
condition that others did the same to her. 

With some the passion for cards amounted almost to 
a mania. Mme. de Clerambault cared for little else in 
life. One superb day at Pontchartrain, on the way back 
from Mass, she stopped on the bridge that leads into 
the gardens, turned slowly round in all directions, and 
then said, ' For to-day I think I have had exercise enough. 
Ho, bien ! Let us hear no more about walking, but sit 
down to cards at once.' Thereupon she produced a pack 
of cards, only broke off the game for a short interval to 
eat a meal, and was indignant when the company left her 
at 2 A.M. 

Games of skill were less popular than games of 
chance, but billiards always had its votaries. The king 
himself was an accomplished player, and it was Chamil- 
lart's proficiency at the game that first won him the royal 
favour and laid the foundations of his subsequent fortune. 
Even bishops did not despise the cue. The Bishop of 
Langres, after being beaten by Vendome and his brother, 
the Grand Prieur, and losing heavily to them (for he was 
a great gambler), retired to his diocese for six months 
to practise the game in private. When he felt himself 
thoroughly proficient he returned to Court, where he was 
at once challenged to a fresh trial of skill by his former 
antagonists, who expected another easy and profitable 
victory. The bishop at first declined, saying that he had 

E 2 



52 THE GEEAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

too vivid a recollection of his former defeat ; that he was, 
moreover, out of practice, as for the last six months he 
had heen seeing nobody but canons and cures. Finally, 
however, he allowed himself to be persuaded ; played 
intentionally badly at first, and had the stakes doubled. 
In the end he showed his true form, and won back much 
more than he had lost on the first occasion. He was, as 
Saint-Simon remarks drily, a man whose morals were 
unimpeachable but who was not designed by nature to 
be a bishop. 

Chess, too, had its patrons. M. de Chartres, after- 
wards Regent, was fond of the game, and M. le Prince 
equally so ; but he did not like being beaten. One day 
he was matched with an infant prodigy of thirteen, a 
page of the Dauphin's, and lost every game. At each 
defeat he relieved his feelings by taking off his wig and 
flinging it in the face of his youthful opponent. 

The theatre occupied an important place in the world 
of amusement. In Louis XIV's day there was no special 
building at Versailles for dramatic performances or operas, 
and the present theatre dates from the later years of 
Louis XV : but Moliere had performed his masterpieces 
in the state-rooms and on the terrace ; and the bosquets 
of the garden were often the scene of those mythological 
and allegorical pieces which charmed the French imagina- 
tion, though they seem to us insipid and tedious. But, 
with his renunciation of worldly pleasures, Louis ceased 
to be a patron of the drama. Actors and actresses had 
always been regarded by the orthodox as something 
unspeakably unclean : they were cut off from the privileges 
of the Church, and were with difficulty interred in con- 
secrated ground. Louis, for a time, displayed all the 
prejudice of an advanced puritan against the playhouse. 
Semi-religious pieces, such as * Esther ' and 'Athalie,' were 
still performed at Saint-Cyr before a select audience; 



LIFE AT COUET 53 

but the Italian comedians were banished, and people 
who wished to enjoy their Moliere or their Scarron had 
to journey to Paris. But the arrival of the Duchess of 
Burgundy brought a concession to human weakness. 
Comedy became once more a Court function, and 
theatricals one of the favourite pastimes of the royal 
family. And if the acting of the noble amateurs was not 
of the highest order, the distinction of being a spectator 
was much coveted. 

Other amusements often had a passing vogue. At one 
time water parties on the canal were the rage, and the 
flotilla of gondolas, the gift of the Venetian Eepublic, 
was in constant demand. But the area was too limited 
to satisfy for long, and, though the custom was revived 
occasionally, it mostly languished. 

More intellectual, and always fashionable, were the 
verbal conceits, rebuses, acrostics, and bouts-rimes, which 
gave scope either for flattery or wit. The gift of being 
able to turn out, impromptu, a graceful couplet or a 
mordant epigram was highly prized and seldom allowed 
to rust for want of use. Equally popular at one time were 
the portraits, word pictures of nicely balanced phrases, 
in which the beaux esprits described themselves, their 
friends, or their enemies. Saint-Simon was a master of the 
art, and, where he hates, his pictures are often all the more 
terrible because the hatred is disguised under an appear- 
ance of candour. Most prized, and at the same time 
most dangerous, was the gift of writing chansons, those 
biting and often scurrilous satires which held up the 
follies of the Court or the foibles of the rulers to ridicule. 
More than one great personage at Court vented his spleen 
anonymously in this way, and the king's own daughter, 
Madame la Duchesse, was not the least of the offenders. 
The innocent often suffered with the guilty in these 
satires, and, if a home truth was sometimes wisely and 



54 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

wittily said, scandal and defamation were the usual 
themes. 

More innocent, and perhaps quite as difficult, was the 
game of ' novels,' which Louis had often played in his 
youth with the clever nieces of Mazarin. One of the 
company would begin a story, and each of the others 
in turn would take it up and add new characters and fresh 
adventures. A sure memory and a lively imagination 
were necessary for anyone who wished to shine at this 
game. 

In 1695 there was quite an epidemic of music. * I 
hear nothing talked of at present,' wrote Madame, ' but 
bSmol, becar, be/a, and bemi, and other things of the 
kind which are Greek to me. But the Dauphin, my son, 
and the Princesse de Conti discuss them for hours at a 
stretch.' 

Madame, who disliked most things French, disliked 
French music too, and had no opinion of Lulli : but her 
contemporaries at the Court, who were national in their 
tastes, thought otherwise ; and then, and for many years 
to come, Lulli held the field against all rivals. Melodious 
but somewhat thin, with pretty, plaintive cadences and 
graceful rhythms, his music reflects perfectly the atti- 
tude of his time towards art. There is no appeal to the 
deeper emotions ; no echo of the harmonies of sea, or 
plain, or forest ; no attempt to grapple with the sterner 
problems that underlie human life. Elegant, smooth, 
and tuneful, it suited well the words to which it was 
wedded, and served as a model for the airs to which 
accomplished lovers set their quaint conceits in verse. 

Other forms of amusement may be dismissed with a 
word. Tennis and mail had been favourite games with 
the king in his youth ; but the heavy and elaborate style 
of dress which came into fashion in the latter half of the 
seventeenth century discouraged active exercise. The 



LIFE AT COUET 55 

Duchesse de Berry, ' whose hands were strong as a 
man's,' was an accomplished driver, and driving had 
become the fashion ; but the want of good roads must 
seriously have detracted from the pleasure, and it was 
not uncommon for the heavy coaches, in which the 
ordinary journeys were made, to be overturned or stuck 
fast in the mud almost outside the royal gates. Cold 
winters, such as those of 1696 and 1718, brought skating: 
victories (and they were few and far between in the 
closing years of the reign), and important events in the 
royal family circle, were celebrated by fireworks which 
drew large crowds from Paris. It happened in 1704 that 
the news of the battle of Blenheim became public at 
the very time when the birth of the Due de Bretagne, 
the King's great-grandson, was to be celebrated by a 
pyrotechnic display. The weather, however, became 
threatening, and the men who were looking after the 
fireworks began to cover them up. A passer-by, seeing 
them spreading a canvas over the rockets to keep them 
dry, cried, ' What are you doing there ? ' One of the men 
replied promptly, ' We're packing up the feu-de-joie to 
send it to the Emperor of Austria. We have no use for 
it here.' 

Such, in brief outline, were the ways in which the 
Court sought amusement. But, in spite of its gorgeous 
setting and its studied attempts at gaiety, life at Ver- 
sailles and Marly was deadly dull. No doubt, for a few 
years, while each fresh experience had the charm of 
novelty, youth might find a feverish pleasure in the 
pageantry of court ceremonial or the idle dissipations of 
a rich and a decadent society. But nothing can perma- 
nently compensate for the absence of a serious purpose 
in life. And, when once a thinking man had divined 
beneath the glitter the petty jealousies and sordid in- 
trigues that were the groundwork of court life, he could 



56 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

hardly fail to be oppressed at times with a sense of the 
hollowness and futility of his existence. At least on 
summer evenings, when the day dies slowly and the 
mind is peculiarly susceptible to sombre impressions, the 
vision of the great palace, rising white and ghost-like 
above the foliage of the garden, must have struck into 
many a restless heart something of the chill of a prison 
or a tomb, and Versailles must have seemed, in the twilight, 
the concrete embodiment of that weariness and monotony 
which were paralysing life and drying up its springs. 

Perhaps the men and women who felt their futility 
most keenly were not always able to fathom its cause. 
They realised, vaguely, that life had failed to satisfy ; but 
they did not consciously formulate the idea that it failed 
because it was divorced from its proper interests. The 
habit of quarrelling with the conditions of one's life is 
a comparatively modern one ; and the French were 
always more inclined than ourselves to take their rulers 
on trust. Affection for the person of the monarch was 
considered as natural and inevitable as affection for 
parents : to be without it was to lack one of the 
elementary qualities of man — a defect to be carefully 
concealed at all costs. Doubtless there was often much 
insincerity in the ostentatious sympathy that was lavished 
on the king's most trifling ailments ; but it is important 
to remember that devotion to the royal person was 
regarded so much in the light of a duty that, with the 
best people, it became a reality. They might question 
the king's wisdom in individual instances ; but his 
general goodness was beyond dispute. And Louis had 
enmeshed them in an artificial system which required 
the sacrifice of their best activities. They made the 
sacrifice, almost unconsciously, and seldom had serious 
doubts about the perfection of the system. He de- 
manded their persons as an accessory to his state : they 



LIFE AT COURT 57 

crowded his palace and helped to decorate his rooms with 
their picturesque figures. He claimed that they should 
cut themselves off from the most stimulating interests 
of their class : they obeyed, and were content to figure 
as ' supers ' in the drama of which he was playing the 
heroic part. If they found life under these conditions 
intolerable, they seem only to have known of two 
remedies : one was to drown thought and conscience in 
debauch ; the other to renounce the world and stake their 
all upon a future life. Not a few of the better natures 
withdrew betimes from the allurements and temptations 
of Versailles to the convent cell, the hair shirt, and the 
fasts and vigils of an ascetic life. Even the gay and 
frivolous, caught suddenly by that fear of death and the 
hereafter to which sensual natures are peculiarly sus- 
ceptible, ended their days in prayer and penance. But 
nobody seems to have thought of breaking new ground, 
of remodelling his life and serving God by serving man. 
The needs of France were great : the poor were growing 
poorer, their sufferings more acute. But the members of 
the ancienne noblesse, though they often realised and de- 
plored the misery, had no impulse as yet towards practical 
philanthropy, no idea that on their own estates there 
were problems to be worked out, which would restore 
to life the interest that it lacked. Louis had hypnotised 
them. They had lost the power of envisaging life 
otherwise than as he had conceived it for them. They 
had no strength to escape from the artificial world in 
which he had entangled them and face realities for 
themselves. And it was this want of initiative in its 
noble families, almost as much as the unwisdom of its 
rulers, which doomed France to the agonising upheaval 
of the Great Eevolution. 



58 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 



CHAPTEE III 

MANNERS AND CUSTOMS 

Discomfort — Disease — Doctors — Conversation — Practical Jokes — Pride — 
Mesalliances — Eccentrics — Religion — The Black Arts — Death. 

Judged by our standards of to-day, life in the Palace of 
Versailles was lacking in many of the most elementary 
requisites of comfort. There were spacious rooms, sump- 
tuous furniture, and gorgeous decoration, but few or none 
of those quiet nooks in which the taste of the occupier 
finds individual expression, and which are dedicated to 
solitude or the intimacy of private friendships. Every- 
thing was sacrificed to the state-apartments, and in the 
matter of privacy prince and courtier were hardly as well 
off as the schoolboy of the twentieth century. It is true 
that they did not often know our craving to be alone, nor 
feel the necessity of possessing some retreat of their 
own, some city of refuge to which they could escape 
from the ceaseless babble of tongues and be secure 
from intrusion. Like the Greeks, they felt life to be 
a public rather than a private affair, and abstinence 
from company was either a self-imposed penance or an 
involuntary hardship. They had too what we lack — a 
real taste for ceremony and public representation. The 
theatrical side of life was cultivated at the expense of the 
family side, with the result that social qualities came to 
be prized almost more highly than domestic virtues. 

But there were some who found the eternal publicity 



MANNERS AND CUSTOMS 59 

of life a burden, and who longed to be alone. Madame 
de Maintenon was always glad to escape to Saint-Cyr 
from the dull chamber at Versailles in which she slept 
and dressed and ate, and which she never had to herself 
till the king had bidden her good night at ten in the 
evening. At Marly, by special favour, she was allowed 
the undivided enjoyment of two tiny rooms, which, with 
a touch of unconscious pathos, she christened le Bepos ; 
but they were so cold and draughty as to be uninhabitable 
in the winter months. ' I had come to le Bepos,' she 
wrote to the Due de Noailles in the February of 1711, 
' to write to you at leisure, but I have been driven away 
by the cold. I am sure you don't want to be the death 
of me.' Others had to content themselves with little 
closets and cupboards contrived out of boards or screens 
at the back of their bedrooms. A few were able to 
satisfy their craving by turning the passages and stair- 
cases that ran behind the state-rooms into cramped suites 
of private apartments. The petits cabinets of Marie 
Antoinette exist to this day, and show with how little of 
real comfort a queen of France was forced to be content. 
Nor was the standard of personal cleanliness a high 
one. The appliances for washing were inadequate and 
primitive. The heavy clothes which fashion imposed 
were no doubt a welcome protection against cold ; but 
they must have made all physical exertion heating, and 
their number and complexity rendered changing a lengthy 
and troublesome process. Moreover, the extraordinary 
head-dresses affected by the women did not conduce to 
frequent brushing of the hair. When once a lady had 
had her locks combed and pomaded into the required'shape, 
her chief ambition in life was to keep the structure 
undisturbed. When the Duchesse du Maine was married, 
in 1692, Madame de Maintenon observed that ' she was 
completely weighed down by her gold and jewellery, and 



60 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

that her coiffure alone weighed more than the rest of her 
person ! ' Strong scents were called in to obviate the 
results of an insufficient use of soap and water, but, to 
quit an unpleasant subject, the remedy was not always 
successful. It is not surprising therefore to find that 
the aristocracy suffered occasionally in a v/ay that is 
fortunately now confined to the dirtiest of our poor. ' The 
Queen of Spain,' writes Madame in 1701, ' was nearly 
devoured by bugs on the Spanish galleys. They had to 
sit up with her for several nights.' And again, from the 
Palace of St. Cloud in 1719, she laments : ' Everybody is 
complaining of the great heat and the cursed bugs ; they 
tortured me the whole night long. The Princess of 
Wales writes to me that all London is complaining of 
them, and the Queen of Sicily says that she found her 
bed simply covered with these pests.' 

Sanitation, as a science, was not even in its infancy. 
No doubt the size of the rooms, coupled with the draughts 
that resulted from large chimneys and long corridors, was 
conducive to health ; but the French of the eighteenth 
century had none of the Dutch passion for cleanliness. 
Pet dogs were often permitted to turn the private apart- 
ments into something little better than a kennel ; rubbish 
was allowed to accumulate ; and courtyards and streets 
were regarded as the natural dumping-ground for offal. 
Paris enjoyed a peculiarly unsavoury reputation, and the 
Palace of Versailles itself was often infected with foul 
smells ; indeed, it was no uncommon thing for slops 
to be thrown from the upper windows into the courts 
below, and, at a later period, Marie Antoinette narrowly 
escaped a sousing from the windows of Madame du Barry. 

Under these circumstances epidemic diseases were 
frequent and virulent ; typhoid and diphtheria, it is true, 
do not seem to have been prevalent ; but, by way of com- 
pensation, measles often assumed a very malignant form. 



MANNEES AND CUSTOMS 61 

and, in 1712 especially, claimed many distinguished victims, 
old and young. But by far the most dreaded scourge was 
small-pox. Few escaped it entirely, and it was responsible 
for more deaths than any other form of illness. Bleed- 
ings, closed curtains, and a rigorous exclusion of fresh air, 
were the recognised treatment, and the Prince d'Espinoy 
was supposed to have died from having his sheets changed 
before he was entirely convalescent — a belief which 
throws a grim light on the horrors of the sick-chamber. 
Even if the patient recovered he was generally marked 
for life. Versailles was full of people of both sexes who 
had been thus disfigured, and this fact lent the disease a 
special terror in a Court where beauty was as much 
prized as talent. Nevertheless, a desire to tend the sick 
generally proved stronger than fear, and a patient seldom 
died for want of voluntary nurses, who made up in 
devotion what they lacked in skill. 

The rate of infant mortality was terribly high, even 
amongst those children who were most carefully watched 
and guarded. Louis XIV lost five children out of six, and 
the Due de Bourgogne two out of three ; and every parent 
expected to lose a fair proportion of his children in infancy. 
But the fittest survived, and when once the critical period 
was passed the ancienne noblesse seems to have possessed 
extraordinary vitality. It is impossible not to be struck 
by the large number of people who are said by Saint- Simon 
to have died at a ripe old age in full possession of their 
faculties. Freschere, lieutenant-general of artillery, was 
still serving at eighty, and the Marechal de Duras broke 
in horses at the same age. La Eablere, a teetotaller, 
lived to be eighty-seven, and Du Chesne, who supped 
nightly off lettuces and champagne and wished others to 
follow his regime, died at ninety-one. Nor were the 
ladies less vigorous. Madame de Puysieux, who had a 
peculiar habit of chewing her veils and fichus and was 



62 THE GEE AT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

supposed to have spoiled in this way a hundred thousand 
francs worth of Genoa lace, died at eighty ' avec toute sa 
tete,' the Duchesse de Verneuil at eighty-two, and Mme. 
de Villars, mother of the marshal, at eighty-five ; and it 
would be easy to multiply instances almost indefinitely. 

But long life did not always imply robust health; 
indigestion, sometimes called frankly by its proper name 
at others disguised under the more mysterious title of ' the 
vapours,' was extremely common, and was nearly always 
the result of over-eating. * I eat too little now,' wrote 
Madame de Maintenon once, ' to suffer from dyspepsia.' 
Others were less abstemious. Smoking is not, perhaps, 
an attractive habit, but it does at least counteract a 
craving for sweets and prevents those frequent snacks 
that are so fatal to health. The gentlemen at the Court 
of Versailles did not smoke, but they ate a great deal 
between meals. Sweets, pastry, and preserved fruits, were 
in constant demand. The Due de Lauzun always kept a 
table covered with fruit and cakes, beer, cider, lemonade, 
and ate and drank at all hours of the afternoon. But 
these extras were not allowed to interfere with the 
serious business of the dinner or supper table. The king 
himself was an enormous eater. ' I have often seen him,' 
says Madame, ' eat four plates of soup, a whole pheasant, 
a partridge, a large plate of salad, mutton au jus or a Vail, 
two big slices of ham, a whole plateful of pastry, and, 
besides these, fruit and hard-boiled eggs.' There were not 
many who could ply quite so good a knife and fork, but 
the average standard of surfeit was a high one. The Grand 
Dauphin and many others were much addicted to fish. 
Now fish had to travel far from the coast, and the means 
of transport were not rapid. The eighteenth century, 
adapting its tastes to its limitations, preferred its fish high, 
and often ate it in a condition which would inspire us 
with positive disgust. The result was that indigestion 



MANNERS AND CUSTOMS 63 

sometimes took a very severe form which was not easily 
distinguishable from apoplexy, and that gastric ulcers 
were common. Nor is it surprising that, from the king 
downwards, these hearty eaters were frequently prostrated 
by gout. Few reached old age without a visit to the 
waters of Bourbon, and the evening of life was often 
harassed by an operation for stone, performed with 
imperfect instruments and without anaesthetics. 

The danger of any serious illness was aggravated by 
the incompetence of the doctors. It is indeed astonishing 
that anybody ever survived the unscientific but drastic 
treatment that was meted out to the suffering body. 
Moliere had poked fun at the medical profession in Le 
Malade imaginaire, where the aspirant for honours, 
questioned as to the proper treatment of various diseases, 
is made to repeat the eternal refrain, ' Clysterium donare, 
postea seignare, ensuita purgare.' And at the beginning 
of the eighteenth century the science of medicine had 
hardly progressed beyond this formula. Only, a new 
terror had been added to illness by the practice of giving 
emetics by way of first aid to the suffering. Perhaps 
in cases of ordinary surfeit the remedy was suited to the 
disease ; but in more complicated illnesses the treatment 
was both exhausting and painful, and there can be little 
doubt that the death of the Due de Berry was accele- 
rated by it. Blood-letting, however, was still the 
chief stand-by in any crisis. Even when they were in 
health, many people of a full habit of body had them- 
selves bled at regular intervals. The operation was 
usually performed on the arm, and the failure to sterilise 
the instruments sometimes led to serious results. Saint- 
Simon, after being treated by Le Drail, a famous Paris 
surgeon, in this way, suffered from an abscess which 
swelled his arm to the size of a bolster, and was only 
saved by the skilful surgery of Marechal. In cases of 



64 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

serious illness the patient was expected to shed his blood 
like water. Madame avers that, when the body of her 
cousin, de la Tremoille, was opened after death, not a 
drop was found left in his veins. Even children were 
not spared, but were subjected to the treatment at the 
mature age of three months — a practice which helps to 
account for the high rate of infant mortality ; and 
Louis XV, when attacked by measles as a child, probably 
owed his life to the fact that, while the doctors were 
busy bleeding and drugging his elder brother to death, his 
governess carried him off, kept him snugly in bed, and 
fed him up with warm wine. 

The most famous doctor of the day was Fagon, the 
king's physician, a man who was remarkable in more 
ways than one, and who was a power at Court to be 
reckoned with. Those who are interested in his personal 
appearance will find a striking portrait of him in the 
Louvre ; ' asthmatic, hump-backed, fleshless, delicate, 
and subject to epileptic fits,' is Saint-Simon's description 
of him. Madame is even less complimentary. ' Dr. 
Fagon,' she says, ' has a face which it is impossible to 
describe. His legs are as thin as a bird's, his mouth 
is choked up by the lower teeth, which are black and 
decayed, he has thick lips which make his mouth project, 
blear eyes, a dark yellow skin, a long face, and he looks 
as disagreeable as he really is.' But in spite of these 
physical defects Fagon possessed character. He was 
discreet, fearless, and honest, and although he failed to 
avert the catastrophes of 1712, he never lost the king's 
confidence. Abroad, he enjoyed a European reputation. 
In 1702 William III, who was in failing health, con- 
sulted him anonymously, and, posing as a poor cure, sent 
an account of his symptoms. Fagon replied bluntly that 
the case was hopeless, and that the patient must prepare 
for a speedy death. Some time afterwards William 



MANNERS AND CUSTOMS 65 

applied to him again, but this time in his own name. 
The physician recognised the identity of the two cases but 
did not alter his opinion, only he prescribed a treatment 
which might prolong life, though it was powerless to cure. 
Fagon indeed, though he had a reputation for resource- 
fulness, was better at foretelling death than at saving life. 

Almost equally famous, and more skilful in his own 
line, was Marechal, the king's surgeon. Those who had 
experience of his surgery have testified to his skill and the 
delicacy of his touch ; and he was, moreover, possessed of 
a sound common-sense and a moral courage which made 
him something of a power at Court. Louis XIV, who 
liked an honest man when he really knew him, held 
Marechal in great esteem, and sometimes listened to his 
advice on matters that lay outside his profession ; and, 
if Saint-Simon's tale is true, it was the great surgeon's 
intervention which, for a time, saved Port-Eoyal from its- 
impending doom. 

When the accredited members of the profession were 
so often at fault, it was natural that quacks should 
flourish. Generally they were only called in at the last 
gasp to do their best or their worst, as at the death-bed of 
Louis XIV ; but there were some who were not mere 
charlatans, and who enjoyed an established reputation 
in spite of Fagon's sarcasms. Such a one was Helvetius, 
who had introduced ipecacuanha into France, and who 
was often consulted in cases of dysentery. Amongst his 
more famous patients he numbered the Due de Beauvillier. 

Enough has been said to show that, in spite of its 
outward brilliance, life at the French Court lacked many 
of the solid advantages that we enjoy to-day, and 
most of the requisites of health and comfort that make 
existence physically attractive. On the other hand, 
it was seasoned by an art which has almost become 
obsolete in our bustling age — the art of conversation. 

F 



66 THE GEE AT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

Versailles provided all the necessary conditions — a leisured 
class that liked society but did not care for books, a 
language that was admirably adapted for clear expression 
or subtle shades of meaning, a national aptitude for search- 
ing criticism, and a boundless wealth of time. Unfortu- 
nately it is often impossible to translate the bo7is mots 
that set the whole Court laughing ; not because they are 
untranslatable, but because, set down in plain blunt 
English, they shock our more refined taste. And the 
reason of this is not merely that the standards of the age 
are different, but that the French have always been an 
extremely logical race. They accept the body as the main 
factor in existence, and they accept it with all its varied 
functions. Perhaps we are inclined to err on the side of 
fastidiousness: the convention that permits a man to talk 
of a pain in the head, but not of one in the liver, is not 
logically defensible. But on the other hand excessive 
frankness has its drawbacks, and, in the eighteenth 
century, certainly made it difficult for quite good people 
to recognise the line where plain speaking ended and 
obscenity began. 

Wit rather than humour was the characteristic of the 
art and was often of a distinctly savage character. 
Epigram, pointed and generally personal, made conversa- 
tion sparkle, and was sometimes carried into the most 
serious phases of life. ' Chaque peclie de cette dame,' 
cried the Abbe de Gobelin of Mme. de Coulanges, 
whom he had been preparing for confession — ' chaque 
pecJie de cette dame est une epigramme !' But the quality 
which gave French wit its special savour, and which 
often shocked the foreigner, was its quiet and sustained 
irony. Nothing was safe from ' the solemn sneer.' * Ma 
tante, on se moque de tout id I ' cried the poor little 
Duchess of Burgundy to Madame de Maintenon ; and the 
phrase was no exaggeration. A shrewd and somewhat 



MANNERS AND CUSTOMS 67 

cynical observation of men and manners, usually coupled 
with a complete absence of reverence for anything but 
birth, was an almost necessary qualification for one who 
wished to gain the ear of the salons. Knowledge was of 
less importance, and many of the most famous and 
polished talkers possessed less general information than 
is expected from the average board-school child of to-day. 
Indeed, the ignorance of the ' educated ' classes was at 
times unfathomable. When the Due de Gramont was 
supposed to be dying they read to him the story of the 
Passion. He had never heard it in French before, and 
consequently it came upon him with all the force of 
novelty. When they reached the passage where ' they all 
forsook him and fled ' he began to cry, and exclaimed : 
' Ah ! the traitors ! But why did he take rascals and 
common people like fishermen for his followers ? Why 
didn't he choose Gascon noblemen ? ' 

A gentleman's education was usually considered com- 
plete when he had acquired a knowledge of the pedigrees 
of the noble families and an adequate comprehension of 
the forms and ceremonies to be observed at Court or on 
official occasions ; into other branches of learning he was 
seldom invited to penetrate far. And there were men who 
were without even this rudimentary knowledge. When, 
for example, Canaples succeeded his uncle, the arch- 
bishop, as governor of Lyons, he used to go about 
the streets giving the archiepiscopal blessing, under the 
impression that it Vv^as part of his own official duties. 
But his was a case of rather exceptional ignorance. 

In the war of wit the ladies more than held their own, 
and were perhaps, on the whole, less ignorant than the 
men. Women like Madame de Maintenon, Madame la 
Duchesse, Mesdames de Montespan, de Caylus, de Sevigne, 
and a score of others, dominated quite as much through 
their intellectual superiority as through their personal 

p 2 



68 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

charms ; and the natural gallantry of the French character 
secured them an influence such as they would have 
possessed in no other European country at the time. 
Madame, who brought to her adopted country a truly 
German depreciation of her own sex, often laments in 
outspoken terms the ambition of Frenchwomen to control 
politics ; and, though her criticisms are sometimes unduly 
severe, her general conclusions are sound. For a ready 
wit and a power of shrewd observation do not necessarily 
imply the clear vision of political tendencies and the grip 
of general principles which are essential to statesman- 
ship ; and France in the eighteenth century had much 
to suffer from the fact that her destinies were too often in 
the hands of accomplished ladies who were born to rule a 
salon but quite unfitted to steer the ship of State. 

But though wit, combined with beauty, received an 
almost exaggerated homage from the male, and though 
the mutual intercourse between the sexes was clothed in 
gallant language that lent it a dignity and a charm, there 
, was very little of the really chivalrous feeling which alone 
makes such intercourse an influence for good, no rever- 
ence for woman as woman, and above all no pity for the 
weak, the erring, or the eccentric. Amongst the curiosities 
of Versailles was a certain Mme. Panache, a little old 
woman with thick lips and bloodshot eyes, passionate and 
unprotected, a kind of semi-lunatic, over whom the cere- 
monies of court life exercised a strange fascination : for 
she was a frequent spectator at such public functions as 
the supper of the king and the dinners of Monseigneur 
and Monsieur. And this is how she was treated : ' Every- 
one amused himself by working her into a passion ; the 
princes and princesses filled her pockets with meat and 
stews, the juice of which trickled down her petticoats on 
to the floor : some would give her money, others a fillip 
or a pinch ; and, as she was too blind to see who had 



MANNERS AND CUSTOMS 69 

struck her, her impotent rage was the sport of the whole 
Court,' Could the hooligans of our worst slums have 
done better ? 

Nor did woman always find in married life the dignity 
and respect which are accorded to her in every healthy 
society. There were, of course, model households, like 
those of Beauvillier, Chevreuse, and Saint-Simon ; but, 
on the whole, the marriage tie was lightlj^ regarded, and 
not a few of the great noblemen, who passed for the 
cream of society, reserved their courtly manners for the 
salons of their mistresses and were petty and intolerable 
tyrants in their own homes. Madame de Maintenon, 
discoursing once on the hardships of married life to her 
teachers at. Saint-Cyr, voiced the wrongs of her sex in 
these words : ' Mon Dieu ! what virtue a woman must 
have ! We make no mistake when we tell our pupils 
that marriage brings with it great pains. Happy, if all 
husbands were like the one I have just mentioned ' (who 
neglected his wife consistently for ten years), ' for, as he 
was never at home, his wife was at least free in her own 
room ! But this was an exceptional case. Most husbands 
come home more than once in the day, and, when they 
come, they always make it clear that they are the masters. 
They come in making a hideous noise, often with I don't 
know how many friends, and they bring in dogs which 
spoil the furniture. The wife has to put up with it : she 
mayn't even shut a window. If her husband comes 
home late, she has to sit up for him; she has to dine 
when he pleases ; in a word, she counts for nothing.' 

And neglect and petty annoyances were not the only 
wrongs that the wife had to put up with. Ill-temper was 
not always unaccompanied by blows, and castigation was 
not made any the more palatable when the husband, like 
the gentleman mentioned in Madame's letters, prefaced 
the operation with a short prayer : ' Merciful Lord, grant 



70 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

that the blow I am about to deal thy servant may correct 
her and make her wiser.' It is only fair to add that there 
were occasions when the wives hit back, and hit the 
harder. 

Perhaps the ladies of the Court did not always do 
much to earn the respect of the sterner sex by superior 
refinement of thought and manners. The mind of the 
age was coarse, and the ladies shared its coarseness. The 
letters of Madame, who was in many ways one of 
the most sincere and healthy personalities of the period, 
are full of indecencies that are Chaucerian in their frank- 
ness ; and even the Duchesse de Bourgogne, charming as 
she was, did not shrink from playing practical jokes on 
her husband which are too indelicate to be put into print. 
And in the minor refinements of life the ladies did not 
set a very high standard. 'I confess,' writes Madame 
de Maintenon, ' that the ladies of the present day are 
insupportable to me ; their insane and immodest dress, 
their snuff, their wine, their greediness and coarseness, 
and their idleness, are all so contrary to my tastes that 
I cannot endure them.' 

Snuff-taking, which, in spite of the king's disapproval, 
had become fashionable, was a pardonable fault ; but 
spitting is not a pretty habit, especially when it is com- 
bined with the absent-mindedness of a Mme. d'Herfort, 
who, when she was playing tric-trac, so far forgot the 
natural order of things as to spit into the dice-box and 
throw the dice into the spittoon. Madame, whose old- 
fashioned prejudices make her a doubtful authority, 
especially where things Galilean are concerned, is full of 
complaints. The children are precocious and ill-bred; 
the schools where they are brought up are full of vices 
that make you * shudder with horror ' ; and boys of nine 
behave like men of thirty. ' At present,' she says, ' young 
people pride themselves on knowing nothing. Young 



MANNERS AND CUSTOMS 71 

La Tonnerre, who belongs to one of the best families, 
bows as awkwardly as a peasant fresh from the plough ; 
to know nothing, to understand nothing, to be rude and 
coarse — that is the sign of good breeding at the present 
day.' And, though we make all allowances for exaggera- 
tion, there are many indications that the punctilious 
courtesy, which had once been characteristic of high life, 
was going sadly out of fashion. The king's daughters, 
especially Madame la Duchesse, set a bad example in this 
respect, and were once sharply called to order by the 
Duchesse de Guiche, at Trianon, for a piece of rudeness 
that was worse than plebeian ; and a scene at Marly, in 
which the Princesse de Conti and Madame la Duchesse 
called each other in public respectively sac d vin and 
sac d guenilles, was more worthy of the Halles than of 
the most polished Court in Europe. 

Among the men at all events, the prohibition of 
duelling was no doubt responsible for a greater license 
both in uncomplimentary speech and in practical joking. 
And this prohibition was no idle threat. The king 
was very much in earnest ; and offenders were severely 
punished. The Comte d'Albert, for example, was sent 
for three years to the Conciergerie ; Pertuis and the 
Marquis de Conflans spent nine years in prison, and were 
not allowed to return to the service when they were at 
length released. Hence repartee often became insulting ; 
witness the scene in which the Due de Gesvres twitted 
Villeroy with his humble origin. ' They were waiting 
for the king's petit convert, grouped round the table, 
when Marshal Villeroy came up with the noise and 
arrogant air characteristic of him. " Marshal," said de 
Gesvres suddenly, "you and I are certainly very lucky." 
"Villeroy, not knowing what the duke was up to, assented 
modestly, and tried to break off the conversation by 
addressing somebody else. But de Gesvres was not to be 



72 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

put off, and continued his monologue : marvelled at the 
luck of a Villeroy in marrying a Crequy, and of his 
own father in marrying a Luxembourg — a piece of good 
fortune which had brought their fathers offices, govern- 
ments, and wealth, and made their grandfathers secretaries 
of state. " But let us stop there, Monsieur le Marechal," 
he went on : " don't let us penetrate further ! For who 
were the fathers of these secretaries of state? Small 
tradesmen, like themselves : on your side a fishmonger at 
the Halles, and on mine a pedlar, or perhaps worse. 
Gentlemen," he concluded, turning to the company, " am 
I not justified in thinking that Fortune has been prodigi- 
ously kind to the marshal and myself ? " ' 

Of practical jokes there was no end, and royalty did 
not disdain to lend a hand. Mme. de Chartres and 
her sisters let off petards one night outside Monsieur's 
windows at Trianon, till the fumes drove him from his 
room. The Due and Duchesse de Bourgogne arranged a 
series of bombs along the avenue that led from Marly to 
the Perspective, where the Princesse d'Harcourt lodged. 
When this lady was half way up the alUe in her sedan 
chair, the bombs began to explode ; the porters, who were 
in the secret, dropped the chair and fled, and the princess 
was left struggling and shrieking inside, like a cat in a 
waste-paper basket ; while the whole Court, which had been 
watching from a distance, hastened up to enjoy the fun. 

Monsieur le Due, at supper, gave Santeuil, the most 
accomplished Latin poet of his day, a glass of wine into 
which he had emptied the contents of his snuff-box : with 
the result that the unhappy scholar died within forty- 
eight hours in great agony. But perhaps the most 
successful and malicious practical jester of the Court was 
the Due de Lauzun. Saint-Simon gives us many speci- 
mens of his handiwork, of which the following story is a 
typical example. 



MANNERS AND CUSTOMS 73 

Chateaurenaud, a bluff sailor of the old school, who 
had received the marshal's baton as a reward for his 
services, was, in private life, somewhat ' heavy in the 
hand,' obtuse, and destitute of conversation. He was 
related to Cavoye through the latter's wife, but, as Cavoye 
represented the pink of polite fashion, the two men had 
nothing in common and saw little of each other. Now 
Cavoye had a house at Luciennes, near Marly, to which, 
when the Court was at Marly, he often went with the 
king's permission, and where he entertained the elite of 
society. Lauzun, who was vexed at being left outside 
the favoured circle, got hold of Chateaurenaud one day 
and persuaded him that Cavoye was hurt at his never 
going to Luciennes ; but warned him at the same time 
that Cavoye had a trick of receiving people coldly — a trick 
which was only a pose and must not be taken seriously. 
Chateaurenaud thanked the duke warmly for the hint, 
and took an early opportunity of presenting himself at 
Luciennes. His arrival created something like conster- 
nation, which was heightened when it became clear that 
the admiral had come to spend the day. But worse was 
in store. Two days later he reappeared at dinner-time. 
His hosts did what they could to make him realise that 
he was not wanted : but Chateaurenaud knew better than 
to be disconcerted, and treated their broad hints with 
ponderous unconcern, as a habit of the house. He 
continued to bore his unhappy relatives at Luciennes, 
Marly, and Versailles, continually falling like a bomb into, 
the midst of their chosen circle ; and Cavoye, despairing 
of a remedy, submitted with a murmured ' Kismet.' The 
trick and its author were not discovered till many years 
had elapsed, and the king, when he was told the tale, 
' nearly died of laughing.' 

But though manners were deteriorating and the solid 
qualities which make a privileged aristocracy tolerable 



74 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

were often wholly wanting, the ancienne noblesse abated 
no jot of its pride. Madame de Maintenon, though 
modest about her own claims, was convinced that rank 
was a divine institution ; and even so shrewd a man as 
Saint- Simon felt for a moment that France was saved 
when the dukes recovered their ancient prerogatives in 
parliament and the presidents a mortier were compelled to 
uncover to them. And this pride sometimes degenerated 
into puerile vanity. Cardinal de Bouillon, banished from 
the Court, was staying in exile at La Ferte. ' Look well 
and note what you see here,' he used to say to the con- 
gregation as he left the parish church after officiating at 
Mass; *a cardinal, doyen of the Sacred College, the first 
after the Pope, has been saying Mass here ! That is a 
thing that you have never seen before and that you will 
never see again.' 

But pride was not always strong enough to stifle the 
sudden impulses of the heart, and mesalliances, horrible 
and degrading as they were considered, were by no means 
unknown. The haughty Mile, de Choiseul, once maid 
of honour to the Duchesse du Maine, married a gardener 
who had saved her from drowning ; and, though she tried 
hard to get her husband ennobled, she had to remain 
plain Mme. Grandcolas. A sister of the Due de la 
Eochefoucauld, one of the noblest of the noble, married 
a confidential servant, though the marriage was kept 
a semi-secret ; and the Due de Saint-Aignan, father of 
Beauvillier (the Minister of State, and governor of the 
Due de Bourgogne), married, at a second venture, one of 
his housemaids — ' a creature,' says Saint-Simon, ' of the 
dregs of the people.' This ' creature,' however, showed 
a modesty and good taste that were often wanting in the 
bluer blooded. She refused to come to Court or to go into 
society, and devoted herself exclusively to her ailing hus- 
band. It is pleasant to be able to relate that, after Saint- 



MANNERS AND CUSTOMS 75 

Aignan's death, Beauvillier and his wife treated the widow 
with every consideration, and brought up her children as 
their own. 

Occasionally the monotony of the daily routine and 
the daily discipline was broken by a few hours of delirious 
licence, when some unusual event or some sudden emotion 
had swept a naturally excitable people temporarily off its 
feet. Thus when, after prolonged suspense, the Due de 
Bourgogne was born and the succession to the throne 
seemed secure for two generations, the happy father so 
far forgot himself as to kiss all the ladies present in the 
room indiscriminately ; a valet, who was just getting into 
bed when the good news reached him, could think of no 
adequate way of expressing his feelings except to fling 
his clothes into the fire ; and the Swiss and French guards 
carried the costly furniture from the rooms on the ground 
floor of the palace and made bonfires of it in the courts. 

Such extravagant demonstrations were not of frequent 
occurrence ; but there seems to have been something 
about the atmosphere of Versailles which was peculiarly 
favourable to imbecility. Court life always encourages 
a desire to be conspicuous ; and it is possible for anyone 
to achieve notoriety by being absurd. Perhaps, too, the 
excessive powers which the French nobility exercised 
over their dependents tended to produce a want of self- 
restraint which easily degenerated into eccentricity. At 
all events, whatever may have been the cause, the Court 
at Versailles contained an unusual proportion of eccentrics. 
The Duchesse de Lesdiguieres, who cared neither for 
writing, reading, nor cards, spent most of her day drinking 
tea or coffee. "When she drank tea, her ladies-in-waiting 
had to dress in Indian fashion ; when she turned her 
attention to coffee, they were expected to attire themselves 
a la Turque ; and the frequent change of dress often 
reduced them to despair. Mme. de Saint-Herem was 



76 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAIIiLES 

mortally afraid of thunder. Whenever a storm came on she 
used to crawl under her bed and make her servants arrange 
themselves on it in a pyramid, in order that, if the lightning 
fell, it might exhaust its power for harm on them before 
reaching her. But her other contrivances were not always 
so harmless. Once she was bathing in the river at 
Fontainebleau, and, as the water was rather cold, she had 
a quantity boiled on the bank and poured round her in 
mid-stream, with the result that she was badly scalded, 
and had to take to her bed for some time. 

The Princesse d'Harcourt, who has already been 
mentioned, was a noted eccentric. Besides being filthily 
dirty in her personal habits, she was a difficult mistress to 
get on with. ' She was lodged immediately above me at 
Versailles,' says Madame, ' and I used often to hear her 
chasing the servants about the room, stick in hand. 
Sometimes the cane fell out of her hands and I could 
hear it rolling on the floor.' But on one occasion the 
princess met her match. She had taken into her service 
as housemaid, a sturdy peasant-woman, to whom she 
meted out the same treatment that she was accustomed 
to apply to others. The new servant submitted for a 
while, but at last determined on revenge, and made her 
preparations with great deliberation. She packed up her 
belongings and sent them out of the house ; then she 
presented herself in her mistress's room at a time when 
she knew she would find her alone, and, unperceived, 
locked the door and slipped the key into her pocket. An 
impertinent answer provoked the expected scene, and at 
the first blow the servant wrenched the cane from the 
princess's hand and proceeded to give her a severe, but 
not unmerited, castigation. When justice had been done, 
she left her mistress screaming on the floor, let herself 
out of the room, double-locked the door behind her, and 
disappeared. The other servants, who were in the secret, 



MANNERS AND CUSTOMS 77 

took care to be in distant parts of the house at the time. 
They had grievances of their own, for the princess paid 
her domestics badly, or not at all. They sometimes 
revenged themselves in an effective fashion, and twice the 
princess found herself stranded in the middle of Paris 
through the wholesale desertion of her attendants. On 
one occasion her carriage stopped suddenly in the middle 
of the Pont-Neuf, the coachman and lackeys got down 
from the box, her maid and ecuyer opened the carriage- 
door and stepped out, and all went off laughing, leaving 
the princess to shift for herself. On another occasion 
Mme. de Saint-Simon found her wandering through the 
streets of Paris, alone, in full court-dress, after a similar 
experience. It is not surprising to hear that she changed 
her servants nearly every day. 

Male eccentrics were equally common. Vervins, 
though apparently in perfect health, spent the evening of 
his life in bed, working at tapestry. More dangerous was 
the delusion of La Chatre, who would suddenly imagine 
himself to be surrounded by enemies and act accordingly. 
One of his earliest fits came upon him when he happened 
to be alone with the Prince de Conti, who was confined 
to his room with gout and unable to put a foot to the 
ground. In the middle of their conversation La Chatre 
gave a sudden cry, leapt to his feet, drew his sword, and 
began to attack the chairs and screens, shouting, ' There 
they are ! help ! ' The prince, who was too far from the 
bell to ring for assistance and unable to arm himself even 
with a poker, expected momentarily to be run through 
the body, and spent what he afterwards admitted to have 
been the most anxious and exciting quarter of an hour of 
his Hfe in utter helplessness. At last somebody came, 
and the lunatic was brought to reason. But in spite of 
this escapade La Chatre was left at large, and though, in 
a similar fit, he tried to leap on to the stage at Versailles 



78 THE GEE AT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

and spit the actors, he was not put under any restraint. 
Only, his relatives were warned to keep him under obser- 
vation, and his acquaintances avoided a tete-d-tete with 
him. 

Probably if any layman had seriously maintained, 
at the close of the eighteenth century, that the Court 
was suffering from a lack of religion, he would have 
been treated as an amusing lunatic. Preachers like 
Bossuet or Massillon, indeed, might thunder from the 
royal pulpit at the vices of the age, and even allude, in no 
veiled terms, to the shortcomings of the monarch himself ; 
but, as Louis XIV observed, that was their metier, their 
official duty. They were listened to tolerantly and their 
professional bias discounted. On the other hand, the 
king could say with perfect justice, since his conversion, 
that never had religion been more outwardly honoured or 
been placed more conspicuously under royal patronage. 
He himself never failed to attend Mass daily, and all the 
members of the royal family were expected to communi- 
cate at the recognised seasons. And his example set the 
fashion for the Court. The misfortune was that the 
particular adaptation of Christianity which found favour 
in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries contained 
very little of the essential teaching of the Master, and 
practically excluded most of the ideas which had at first 
differentiated Christianity from the other religions of the 
world. To most it began and ended with a repetition of 
beliefs and the due performance of ceremonies. In the 
more ardent minds it was combined with a passion for 
uniformity which led to the persecution of the Huguenots 
and the suppression of Port-Royal. The noblesse was too 
profoundly imbued with a sense of its inherent superiority 
to be capable of understanding that in the Kingdom of 
Heaven the first shall be last and the last first ; and 
a creed that was consciously regarded as a bulwark of 



MANNERS AND CUSTOMS 79 

absolute monarchy was not likely to insist strongly on 
the equality of men. In the eyes even of the best people 
of the day the peasant was scarcely a man. He was an 
institution divinely appointed to pay taxes and make 
the earth profitable for its possessors. The Grande 
Mademoiselle, first cousin of the king, when, in 1658, she 
visited La Dombes (a small principality which was not 
definitely incorporated into France till 1762) was horrified 
at the prosperity she saw around her. ' They eat meat 
four times a day,' she says, ' and there are no poor. The 
reason is that hitherto they have paid no poll-tax. 
Perhaps it would be better that they should pay it, for 
they are idle and don't devote themselves to any work or 
commerce.' At the same period, in Burgundy, which had 
been the scene of a war between the Spanish troops under 
Conde and a royal army, ' you met at every turn mutilated 
bodies and scattered limbs ; women quartered after being 
violated, others pierced with spits or sharp stakes.' And 
the unfortunate survivors, without seed to sow or imple- 
ments to till the ground, were left to die of disease and 
starvation. 

In times of peace, and until excessive taxation had 
ruined agriculture, the lot of the peasant was not, from 
a material point of view, an intolerable one. Henri IV 
had looked forward to a time when * the poorest peasant 
in the realm would eat meat every day in the week, and 
have a fowl for the pot on Sunday,' But man cannot 
live by bread alone, and it was not till the Eevolution 
that the labourer gained the personal liberty and the 
social status which alone make life a dignified or a noble 
thing. To the nobles of the ancien regime he was a 
necessary factor in the production of wealth, and little 
more, and their attitude towards him was the attitude of 
some modern capitalists towards native labour ; to toil with 
the sweat of his brow for the enrichment of others was 



80 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

his highest good ; independence and idleness were the 
privilege of his superiors. 

It must not be supposed that there were no souls who 
were moved to pity by the immensity of the suffering 
which war (especially that of the Fronde) or famine 
produced in France. St. Vincent de Paul is said 
to have distributed twelve million francs, worth about 
sixty millions at the present day, in the relief of distress, 
and the Cahale des Devots, a secret society which enjoyed 
the support of the queen-mother so long as she lived, 
though its work was marred by sectarian prejudices, took 
an active part in repairing the ravages of the Fronde. 
But most of the contributions came from the bourgeoisie 
of Paris. The smaller nobles indeed had nothing left to 
give, and, though there were charitable souls among the 
gay courtiers, worldliness and indifference to the misery 
of the poor were the dominant note in society. Much of 
this indifference was no doubt due to the personnel of the 
Church. The humble cures, it is true, were often devoted 
men who led lives of quiet heroism and self-sacrifice : nor 
were there ever wanting men who were ready fearlessly 
to rebuke vice in high quarters. Pere Mascaron dared, 
in the presence of Louis XIV, to preach a sermon against 
adultery, and, on another occasion, he gave still greater 
offence by inveighing against wars of conquest. ' I went 
to service yesterday,' wrote Madame de Maintenon, ' and 
heard a fine discourse from le Pere Mascaron. He pleases 
the mind but does not touch the heart, and his eloquence 
even shocks people of good taste, because it is out of 
place. He spoke rather too strongly about conquest, and 
told us that a hero is a robber who does, at the head of 
an army, what rogues do for themselves unaided. Our 
master is displeased, but at present it is a secret.' 

But however earnest the subordinates might be, they 
were generally hampered in their efforts by the supineness 



MANNERS AND CUSTOMS 81 

of their chiefs. Most of the great dignitaries of the 
church, the cardinals, bishops, and abbes, were drawn 
from the privileged orders. A fat abbey or a rich 
bishopric was the recognised perquisite of the younger 
sons of great houses ; and, though there were good 
and honest men amongst these noble prelates, they 
were tainted with prejudices, and, too often, with the lax 
morals of their class. Under the influence of Madame de 
Maintenon, Louis, in the later years of his reign, did 
indeed fill some important sees with men whose claims 
were based on merit and not on birth ; but these appoint- 
ments were regarded as surprising and almost eccentric, 
and were not favourably viewed by the nobility, who saw 
in them an encroachment on their privileges. Even the 
clergy of Saint- Sulpice, who, also under the influence of 
Madame de Maintenon, were sometimes drawn from the 
' lowest of the people,' were regarded with suspicion by 
the fashionable world, and Saint-Simon's phrase a ^ plat 
Sulpicien," marks the contempt of the aristocracy for any 
follower of the Carpenter of Nazareth who could not 
show noble quarterings. 

The incredulity which was so marked a feature of the 
eighteenth century was as yet only in its infancy. It 
was still regarded as ' bad form,' and hardly extended 
beyond the immediate circle of the king's nephew, the 
Due d'Orleans. A certain mild scepticism was pardoned 
in youth, but orthodoxy was almost obligatory on the 
aged ; and the king's mistresses set an excellent example 
in the matter of devotion. 

As might be expected in a profoundly ignorant 
society, there was a good deal of superstition. The king 
regarded Friday as an unlucky day and avoided travelling 
on it. Ghosts, too, exercised the fears of some. Mme. 
d'Heudicourt had relays of servants to sit up with her 
every night, and nearly died of fright when a favourite 

G 



82 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

parrot, which she had had for twenty years, was gathered 
to its fathers. She redoubled her guards, her occupSes as 
she called them, and the impending visitation was warded 
off. Her son, too, was afflicted with the same terrors, 
and would never be alone after dark. Even Madame, the 
free-thinking wife of the king's brother, dabbled in the 
supernatural. ' It is only too true,' she wrote in 1695, 
* that the dead cannot return. Three weeks before his 
death the Prince de Conti ^ had promised faithfully to 
appear to me, if it were possible, to give me news of the 
other world ; but I have never seen him.* 

But the commonest way in which society showed its 
belief in unseen powers was by dabbling in the black 
arts. Alchemists, fortune-tellers, and magicians drove a 
thriving trade, and played no unimportant part in the 
love-intrigues of the fashionable world. ' The inhabitants 
of mean streets in the suburbs of Paris were accustomed 
to the daily stir, at dawn or dusk, round certain solitary 
houses. People of all classes, on foot, in carriages or 
in sedan-chairs — the women masked or veiled — formed 
a queue outside a closed door which only opened at a 
given signal.' ^ The worst of it was that the trade of 
fortune-teller was too often combined with that of 
poisoner; but it needed the Chambre ardente of 1679, 
and the revelations of La Voisin, to convince the world 
at large of the extent of the malady and the danger of 
these practices. 

Catherine Montvoisin, commonly called La Voisin, was 
the wife of a hosier, whose shop was situated on the 
Pont-Marie connecting the He St. -Louis with the right 
bank of the Seine. The husband was uniformly unsuc- 
cessful in business ; the wife on the other hand made an 

' The elder of the two prmees of that name, and husband of the king's 
daughter by Mile, de la Valliere. 

* Arv^de Barine, Louis XIV et la Grande Mademoiselle. 



MANNEES AND CUSTOMS 83 

enormous income out of the poisons, love-philtres, and 
sacrilegious rites, which were her stock-in-trade. For 
the rich her consultations cost thousands of francs ; for the 
poor her terms were more moderate. Among her acolytes 
was Mariette, a priest of the Church of Saint-Severin, 
whom she employed for her blasphemous ritual. Amongst 
her clients was Madame de Montespan, the king's mistress 
and the mother of seven of his children. As early as 
1668 Louis must have had a hint that his new mistress 
was mixed up with this criminal world. For La Voisin 
had imprudently accused Mariette of enticing away her 
clients, and justice, getting wind of the affair, had insti- 
tuted an inquiry. Mariette confessed that he had recited 
' passages from the Gospels ' over the heads of various 
people, to wit, ' La dame de Bougy, Madame de Monte- 
span, Le Duverger and M. de Kavetot, who had all been 
brought to him by Lesage.' But, before the inquiry had 
proceeded far, it was discovered that Mariette was a 
cousin of the wife of Le Chatelet, the judge appointed 
to conduct the investigation ; and Le Chatelet thought it 
his duty to hush up the affair. Powerful influences were 
exerted with the same object, and Mariette and Lesage 
returned to their nefarious practices. We may well 
imagine that the king, then at the height of his infatua- 
tion, refused to believe that the beautiful and clever 
creature who had captured his heart was guilty of 
anything worse than a feminine curiosity. But the 
matter became more serious when, in 1680, the Chambre 
ardente threw light on the dark practices of which La 
Voisin had been the centre and the organiser. It was 
bad enough that on the list of those summoned to appear 
before the court there should be such celebrities as 
the Comtesse de Soissons, the Marquise d'Alluye, the 
Vicomtesse de Polignac, the Marquis de Fouquieres, the 
Princesse de Tingoz and the Duchesse de Bouillon ; but 

Q 2 



84 THE GEEAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

it was worse still for the prestige of the monarchy that 
the names of Mile, des CEillets, former suivante of the 
Montespan, and of Cato, her femme de chamhre and a 
creature of La Voisin, should occur in compromising 
revelations. Guibourg, too, and Lesage gave evidence to 
the effect that Madame de Montespan had even planned 
the death of the king by poison. The inquiry was held 
in secret, but the king was kept fully informed of all the 
phases in the poignant drama ; and, though the suspense 
lasted for months, he never once betrayed by look or 
gesture the anguish that must have filled his soul. In 
the end, either for reasons of state or because he had 
persuaded himself of her innocence, Louis acquitted his 
mistress of the greater crime. In 1682 the Chamhre 
ardente was suppressed. The influential suspects escaped 
scot free ; the smaller fry, to the number of about 150, 
were executed or sent to an equally certain death in 
prison.' 

The secret of Madame de Montespan's real or supposed 
complicity was known only to a few, and was so well 
kept that her contemporaries never suspected it. Prob- 
ably her connection with La Voisin is to be explained by 
a desperate resolve, first to retain, and finally to regain, 
by black arts, the fickle affection of her royal lover. But 
the disillusionment, which the knowledge of her conduct 
must have brought to Louis, is enough to account for his 
somewhat harsh treatment of her after the final rupture. 
Possibly, too, we may find in the incident a clue to her 
own excessive fear of death. 

Madame de Montespan had been no sceptic. The 
queen had first been attracted to her by her frequent 
Communions and her rigid observance of religious cere- 
monies, an observance which was not part of a calculated 

' La Voisin herself was burned alive on the Place de la Gr^ve, Feb- 
ruary 22, 1680. 



MANNERS AND CUSTOMS 85 

hypocrisy but represented a genuine, if narrow and 
imperfect, belief. But credulity was not the monopoly of 
the devotes. The Due d'Orleans, who believed neither in 
God nor goodness, dabbled in the black arts and had 
tried to see the Devil. One day, with the aid of a pro- 
fessional magician, he attempted, most indiscreetly, to 
dip into the future. Mile. Sery, his mistress, had among 
her protegees a little girl of eight, who represented, amidst 
somewhat ambiguous surroundings, the innocence of 
childhood ; she had never been to Versailles, she had 
never seen the royal family, and, according to Saint- 
Simon, she had never even left the house. She was, 
therefore, an admirable subject for psychical research. 
A glass of water was placed in her hands, the magician 
made a few passes over it, and she was told to look into 
it and describe what would happen at the king's death- 
bed. She did as she was bidden and ' described the king's 
bed-room accurately, with the furniture that was actually 
there at the time of his death. She described the king 
perfectly, in his bed, and the people who were round him 
or in the room ; a small child (Louis XV) with the Order 
of the Saint-Esprit, held by Mme. de Ventadour, whom 
she recognised from having seen her at Mile. Sery's 
house; also the Due d'Orleans, whom she likewise knew. 
She then described people who were recognisable as 
Madame de Maintenon, Fagon, Madame, the Duchesse 
d'Orleans, Madame la Duchesse, and the Princesse de 
Conti — in a word she gave a full account of all the people 
Rhe saw, princes, servants, nobles, and valets.' This 
happened in 1706 when the Grand Dauphin, the Due 
and Duchesse de Bourgogne, and the Due de Berry 
were still alive and in perfect health. The Due d'Orleans, 
astonished that no mention was made of them, described 
their personal appearance, in turn, to the little girl, and 
asked if she did not see such and such a person. But she 



86 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

replied consistently in the negative, and repeated what 
she did see. 

What followed was stranger still. The duke asked if 
he could be told what would happen to him personally. 
The glass of water was removed and the necromancer 
offered to show him the future in a picture on the wall. 
After a quarter of an hour of professional business, ' there 
appeared suddenly on the wall a life-size picture of the 
duke in his ordinary dress but wearing a closed crown. 
This crown was neither that of France, Spain, England, 
nor the Holy Roman Empire, and completely mystified 
the duke who had never seen one like it.' It was 
undoubtedly intended to foreshadow the regency. 

This incident was related to Saint-Simon by the duke 
himself shortly after it had occurred in 1706 ; and Saint- 
Simon is too truthful a witness to have tampered with 
the date or deliberately to have falsified the details, though 
no doubt his memory was unconsciously affected by 
subsequent events. But, though the story remained a 
puzzle to him, the explanation is not difficult, if we ma,y 
suppose collusion between the necromancer and the child. 
It will be noticed that the Duchesse de Berry, who was 
actually present at the death, is not mentioned in the 
vision. It seems fairly obvious that the necromancer, 
whose object it was to flatter the duke's ambition, simply 
eliminated all the people who would naturally stand 
between him and the regency. He could not foresee that 
the duke's own daughter would one day marry the Due 
de Berry and so be present at the closing scene in 1715. 
The innocence of the little girl, on which the duke laid 
much stress when he told the story to Saint-Simon, will 
impose on nobody who is accustomed to investigate 
psychical phenomena. 

What was curiously absent from the minds of the 
ancieyme noblesse of this period was any feeling for the 



MANNEES AND CUSTOMS 87 

bodies of their dead : and indifference sometimes almost 
amounted to a want of reverence. There was no clinging 
to the mortal remains, no sentiment over the house of 
clay when the spirit had departed ; and etiquette, which 
forbade a superior to do honour to his inferior in rank, 
prevented even parents from following their children to 
the grave. The royal practice on these sad occasions is 
instructive. "When the end was imminent the carriages 
were ordered, and Louis would hurry from the death- 
chamber to a change of scene and surroundings. The 
corpse was left to those whose official duties made it their 
charge. Custom had much to do with this seeming 
callousness, and the severely logical nature of the French 
gave a sanction to custom. And if there was no senti- 
ment over the dead body there was also little sense of the 
pathos or even of the horror of death. The funeral 
service was not a last and touching parting with the dead, 
a committing of the beloved body into the hands of the 
Almighty, but a social function where claims of precedence 
and rival jealousies were as freely vented as at a wedding 
or a state reception. 

The Bourbons had their last official resting-place in 
the vaults of St. -Denis : but their bodies (unless the 
nature of the final illness made the operation unwise) 
were opened and the more perishable parts removed and 
embalmed, the heart, in the case of many, being placed in 
the Val de Grace. These grim relics were sealed up in 
urns and conveyed by hand to their final destination, and 
the distinction of bearing them was highly valued. "When 
the first Due de Bretagne died in infancy in 1705, 
Cardinal de Coislin carried the heart in a carriage on 
his knees. A somewhat horrible scene was witnessed at 
the funeral of Mile, de Montpensier, the king's first 
cousin. Either the embalming had been imperfectly 
carried out, or else the urn, in which the relics were 



88 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

placed, was insufficiently sealed ; for ' in the middle of 
the service the urn, which had been deposited on a 
credence, exploded with a loud report,' and the intolerable 
smell which resulted sent the congregation, priests heralds 
and spectators, flying in a struggling mass to the doors. 
It is significant that Saint- Simon records the event as 
a hu^lorous episode. 



89 



CHAPTEE IV 

SOME CELEBRITIES AT THE COURT 

Princes of the Blood — M. le Prince — M. le Due — The Prince de Conti — 
Lauzun — Gavoye — Langlee — Samuel Bernard — De la Rochefoucauld 
— The Marechale de Villeroy — Beauvillier and Chevreuse — Vatteville. 

Though the sayings and doings of the king and his 
family formed the principal interest of Court life, and 
though the individual courtier was condemned to play a 
very subordinate role, there v^ere, nevertheless, some 
minor characters who attracted a fair share of the public 
attention and who figure prominently in the memoirs of 
the period. Hence, a brief notice of some of them may 
not be out of place here. 

Foremost amongst these lesser stars were the Princes 
of the Blood, descendants or relatives of the great Conde 
who had fought for the Fronde, ravaged France in the 
service of Spain, and finally added lustre to the Grand 
Monarque' s reign by his victories as commander of the 
royal forces. They were distinguished for their uncertain 
temper and their diminutive stature. The eldest of them, 
Henri-Jules de Bourbon, commonly called M. le Prince, 
was a small man, with dark expressive eyes and pro- 
truding lips. In his youth he had served in Flanders ; 
but he inherited none of his father's military talents, and, 
even if he had been a Napoleon, the jealousy of Louis 
would have debarred him from a military career. 

'No one,' says Saint-Simon, 'was ever endowed with 
a keener or more varied intelligence, which extended 



90 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

even to the arts and mechanics and was combined with 
an exquisite taste. No one also was more frankly and 
naturally brave, or had a greater desire to shine ; and, 
when he chose to please, he did so with a tact, a grace, 
and a courtesy, which seemed spontaneous and proved 
irresistible.' Cut off, however, from any useful service to 
the State, he frittered away his life at Court or in his 
own magnificent palace of Chantilly, a prince of fetes, a 
hero of malicious practical jests, and a master of small 
intrigue. To his wife, who was ugly, stupid, virtuous, 
and patient, he was a veritable tyrant. She was hardly 
allowed to call her soul her own. He would make her 
start on a journey at a moment's notice ; and often, as 
soon as she had seated herself in the carriage, he would 
order her to get out again, and postpone the intended 
journey for hours or days. At other times he would 
summon her from church, even when she was on the 
point of receiving the Communion ; not because he needed 
her presence, but solely for the pleasure of exercising 
authority. And, if she failed to obey the summons at 
once, there were consequences. 

He himself was always uncertain in his movements, 
and every day four dinners were cooked for him — one in 
Paris, a second at Ecouen, a third at Chantilly, and a 
fourth wherever the Court might be at the moment. As 
the menu consisted qnly of soup and half a chicken on a 
crust of bread, the expense was not as great as might 
have been expected. He spent the day in transacting 
his private business, and made a practice of lending 
money to members of the Paris parliament in order that 
he might be sure of their support in his numerous law- 
suits. He rarely entertained at Chantilly, where his 
servants and a few learned Jesuits kept him company. 
When he walked in the grounds, he was followed by four 
secretaries to whom he dictated, on the spot, any ideas 



SOME CELEBRITIES AT THE COURT 91 

that occurred to him for the improvement or embelhsh- 
ment of his estate. Though furiously jealous of his wife, 
he claimed a large amount of liberty for himself, and once 
fell madly in love with the Marquise de Eichelieu, a lady 
of many attractions and no character. Finding that he 
had a successful rival in the person of the Comte de 
Eoucy he reproached his mistress fiercely with her 
treachery, and she, fearful of losing so rich a lover, pro- 
posed at once to give the count a rendezvous and have 
him assassinated by the prince's men. It is to the credit 
of the prince that he was so horrified at the suggestion 
that he informed De Koucy of the plot and never saw the 
marquise again. 

During the last fifteen or twenty years of his life 
his eccentricity was hardly distinguishable from madness. 
One morning he called on the Marechale de Noailles, at 
the moment when her bed was being made and nothing 
was wanting but the counterpane. He paused for a 
second at the door and then, crying in ecstasy, ' Oh ! le 
hon lit, le hon lit ! ' he took a run, jumped on to the bed, 
and rolled over seven or eight times. Then he got down 
and apologised, without a trace of embarrassment, saying 
that the bed looked so clean and so beautifully made that 
he had been unable to restrain an impulse to ' wallow ' 
in it. He also developed a habit of barking like a dog, 
regardless of the feelings of those around him : only, when 
the fit seized him in the presence of the king, he showed 
his respect for royalty by putting his head out of window 
and barking into space.' Finally gout and fever carried 
him off. During his last illness he insisted that he was 
already dead and refused all nourishment on the ground 
that the dead do not eat. Finot, his doctor, was at his 
wit's end, till at last he hit upon the happy idea of main- 
taining that dead people do occasionally eat ; and in 

' He also took to weighing everything that entered his body. 



92 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

support of his contention he offered to produce concrete 
examples. The pretended dead, after being duly coached, 
were ushered into the room, and, for the remaining weeks 
of his life, the prince consented to take food ; but only in 
the company of his fellow-corpses. 

Almost his last conscious act was to torment his wife 
by refusing to send for a priest, though in reality he had 
been seeing Pere La Tour secretly for several months. 
The prince had proposed that La Tour should come in 
disguise ; but this the priest resolutely declined to do. 
However, to humour the patient, he paid his visits at 
night, and was conducted to the prince's room by secret 
passages and private doors. M. le Prince died in Paris in 
1709 at the age of sixty-six. 

He was succeeded by his son, Louis due de Bourbon, 
commonly known as M. le Due. This prince had in- 
herited some of his father's talents and most of his temper. 
* He had great qualities,' says Mme. de Caylus, ' but 
was brutal.' His trick on Santeuil, which cost the 
scholar his life, has been already mentioned ; but two 
other instances of his playful disposition may be quoted 
here. He possessed at Saint-Maur, in the neighbourhood 
of Paris, a small country house to which he was in the 
habit of paying flying visits. On one occasion he had 
gone there for a night with five of his most intimate 
friends, amongst whom was the Comte de Fresque. 
At supper a dispute arose between the count and his 
host over some historical fact. De Fresque, who was 
clever and well-read, maintained with some warmth that 
his own version was right ; the duke was equally positive 
that it was wrong, and, finding that argument was use- 
less, he finally threw a plate at the head of his guest 
and kicked him out of the house. De Fresque, who had 
come to stay the night and had sent away his carriage, 
was obliged to beg for shelter at the cure's house and 



SOME CELEBEITIES AT THE COURT 93 

returned to Paris early the next morning. The quarrel 
lasted for some time but was at length made up, and, 
during De Fresque's last illness, the duke waited on him 
like a servant. 

If his friendship was dangerous, his enmity was still 
more to be feared. A supper of ' young bloods ' in Paris, 
at which he had been present with the Prince de Conti, 
had ended in some disorderly scenes. News of what had 
happened somehow reached the ears of the king, who 
gave the two princes a severe reprimand. M. le Due 
suspected that Termes, one of the premiers valets de 
chambre, was the informer, and he determined to have 
his revenge. One night, at Versailles, as Termes was 
leaving the rooms of M. le Grand at 1 a.m., he was set 
upon by five tall Suisses armed with sticks, who beat him 
for the whole length of the gallery. Termes had to take 
to his bed for several days, but the names of his 
assailants were never officially discovered. 

In 1685 M. le Due married Mile, de Nantes, the pretty, 
clever, but malicious daughter of Louis XIV and Madame 
de Montespan. By this marriage he gained a large pension, 
the governorship of Burgundy, and all the private entrees, 
including that of the king's cabinet after supper. He 
thus secured precedence over his own father, and little 
love was lost between the two. But of political influence 
he possessed no jot. He lived on good terms with his 
wife, though he never enjoyed either her affection or 
esteem, and died in the spring of 1710. He had been 
suffering for some time from pains in the head and 
occasional fits, which he endeavoured to keep secret ; and, 
in answer to the earnest entreaties of his mother that he 
would think of his soul, he had promised to turn over a 
new leaf, but not till after the Carnival, at which he 
intended to have a last fling. On the Monday evening, 
as he was driving home over the Pont-Koyal from the 



94 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

Hotel Coislin, he was seized with a fit and carried in an 
unconscious state to his bedroom in the Hotel Conde. 
The doctors bled and physicked him ; but, though he 
made horrible faces, he never recovered consciousness 
and died at 4 a.m. on Shrove Tuesday. 

' He was,' says Saint-Simon, ' much smaller than the 
smallest of men, and, without being fat, he was stout all 
over. His head was abnormally large, and his expression 
positively alarming. He was well read, intelligent, and 
had received an excellent education. . . . He had neither 
the avarice, the injustice, nor the meanness of his 
ancestors, . . . but he had all their malignity and more 
than their skill in usurping privileges by subtle intrigue.' 

He was succeeded by his son, the Due d'Enghien, who 
took his father's title of M. le Due. It was this prince 
whose eye was shot out through the carelessness of the 
Due de Berry ; but his life's work belongs to the Regency 
and the earlier years of Louis XV, under whom he held 
for a while the office oi premier ministre. 

The younger branch of the Condes was known by the 
name of Conti. There were many princes of that name, 
of whom two deserve mention here. They were brothers, 
and nephews of the great Conde. 

The elder, Louis-Armand de Bourbon, married Mile, de 
Blois (the legitimised daughter of Louis XIV and Mile, 
de la Valliere), who was the most beautiful woman of her 
day till she was partially disfigured by small-pox. The 
husband caught the infection from his wife and died at 
Fontainebleau in 1685 at the age of twenty-five, leaving 
no issue. 

His younger brother, Franpois-Louis de Bourbon, had 
a longer and more adventurous career. A pleasing face 
and a charming courtesy, which was lavished alike on the 
cabinet minister and the lackey, made him a universal 
favourite. He had, moreover, a cultured mind, a quick 



SOME CELEBRITIES AT THE COURT 95 

intelligence, and a talent for conversation. Unfortunately 
this pleasing exterior concealed some grave moral defects. 
But the prince sinned gracefully, and even when drunk 
he remained a gentleman. 'Le Prince de Conti,' wrote 
Madame, 'is very funny when he is drunk. On such 
occasions he thinks that it is somebody else who has been 
drinking. Last year at an appartement I found him in 
a very exalted state. He came up to me and said, " I 
have just been talking to the Papal Nuncio : he reeks of 
wine and is completely intoxicated. I am afraid he won't 
be able to remember all the pretty things I have said to 
him, for he is too drunk." And with that he began to 
sing and laugh and pay me compliments, all in the same 
breath. "But, my cousin," said I with a laugh, " are 
you sure that it isn't you who have been drinking ? You 
certainly seem very merry." " Why ! " he exclaimed, 
" you are making exactly the same mistake as Mon- 
seigneur, M. de Chartres, and the Princesse de Conti ! 
They all think I am drunk and will not believe that it is 
the Nuncio." . . . And if we hadn't prevented him, he 
would have gone up to the Nuncio and asked him where 
he had been drinking.' 

The Prince de Conti had been the favourite of the 
great Conde who liked him better than his own son ; 
and he was generally supposed to possess some of his 
uncle's military genius. But he was given few oppor- 
tunities of showing how far his reputation was justified. 
He was slightly wounded at Neerwinden, where he was 
serving as lieutenant-general under Luxembourg ; but 
his services in the Hungarian army (whither he had 
repaired without the royal permission), though they added 
to his fame, deeply offended the king ; and his popularity 
with the army was enough of itself to ruin his chances 
of an independent command. This neglect was the great 
trial of the prince's life, and though, outwardly, he bore 



96 THE GREAT DAYS AT VERSAILLES 

it philosophically, he often fretted inwardly ; for he was 
conscious of ability and eager for fame. 

He married a daughter of M. le Prince and was a 
persona grata both with his father and mother-in-law. 
But his affections were bestowed, not on the wife who 
worshipped him and whom he always treated kindly, but 
on the witty and beautiful daughter of the king, Mme. la 
Duchesse. She returned his passion with an equal 
fervour, and her affection survived his death ; and this 
mutual devotion was the one romance in her hard and 
somewhat cruel life. M. le Due, though he raged in 
secret, did not dare to break openly with his rival. 

The great adventure of his life came in 1697, when, 
chiefly through the machinations of Polignac, he was 
elected King of Poland. The position was a doubtful 
one, for the electors were divided, and, while one party 
had chosen the French prince, another had proclaimed 
the Elector of Saxony, Conti was loth to go ; the empty 
title of king being in his eyes but a poor compensation 
for perpetual exile from France and Mme. la Duchesse. 
But Louis insisted on his accepting the crown. The 
political advantages that might accrue to France were too 
great to be neglected, and the king was at the same time 
not sorry to be rid of a prince whose popularity was a 
continual reproach to himself. In September, when all 
pretexts for delay had been exhausted, Conti said good- 
bye to Paris and home and started for Dunkerque. The 
king had given him two million francs, in addition to 
four hundred thousand for personal expenses and one 
hundred thousand for his equipage. He made a bad 
beginning; for two thousand louis were scattered on the 
roads from a broken chest in which they were being 
carried. Some of the treasure was brought back to Paris, 
the rest went to enrich the lucky finders. 

The port of Dunkerque was watched by an enemy's 



SOME CELEBRITIES AT THE COUET 97 

fleet ; but, under the skilful guidance of Jean Bart, the 
prince gave it the slip and arrived off Dantzig on Septem- 
ber 28. Meanwhile the Elector of Saxony had not been 
idle. He had entered Poland, and, putting himself at the 
head of his followers, had seized the capital and the royal 
treasure ; and when the Prince de Conti at last appeared 
upon the scene, he found his rival in possession and his 
own adherents wavering. Dantzig was hostile and re- 
fused provisions for the ships, which the prince did not 
dare to leave. After weeks of fruitless negotiations, find- 
ing that he was unable to fulfil the lavish promises which 
Polignac had made on his behalf, and that the situation 
was hopeless, with the king's permission he abandoned 
an enterprise for which he had had no enthusiasm, and 
reached Paris again on December 12, full of amusing 
anecdotes and thankful to be at home once more. 

Coldly received at Versailles and at Marly, the prince 
was always a welcome guest at Meudon, the favourite 
residence of Monseigneur, and was one of the privileged 
few who were allowed to pay their homage to Mile. 
Choin. He had been brought up as a child with Mon- 
seigneur ; and, though the two were very unlike in their 
interests and capacities, early associations had formed a 
lasting bond between them. But the Prince de Conti did 
not extend his friendship to all the inmates of Meudon, 
and Vendome and his brother, the Grand Prieur, were on 
his black books, The sudden rise of Vendome to fame, 
and his much-advertised though somewhat apocryphal suc- 
cess in Italy, excited the jealousy of the neglected general ; 
while the coarse and insolent manners of the favourite 
converted jealousy into loathing. But, for some years, to 
question Vendome's ability was to offend the king, and 
Conti's outspoken criticism of the strategy of the cam- 
paign of Oudenarde brought down upon his head a public 
reprimand. 

H 



98 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

On one occasion the smouldering embers of resent- 
ment were fanned, for a moment, into a sudden flame. The 
prince was playing cards at Meudon with the Grand 
Prieur, and a dispute arose over some point in the game. 
The quarrel became envenomed ; the Grand Prieur was 
insolent, and the prince, losing his self-control, called him 
a cheat and a coward. Thereupon the Grand Prieur flung 
down the cards, and, leaping to his feet, challenged his 
opponent to a duel. The prince replied calmly that his 
movements were well known and that he could always 
be found. At this moment Monseigneur, who had been 
hastily summoned, rushed into the room in his dressing- 
gown and put an end to the fracas for the time being ; 
but on the following morning, lest worse should befall, he 
informed the king of what had happened. It was Louis' 
settled policy to trample upon duellists, and he seldom 
made exceptions. The Grand Prieur was arrested and 
sent to the Bastille, where he languished until his head 
had had time to cool. He was ultimately released, through 
the earnest efforts of his friends and the intercession of 
the Prince de Conti himself. 

In 1709 came the chance for which the Prince had 
waited so long. Louis had tried one general after another, 
and they had all failed him. At length, in desperation, 
he fell back upon the man who had been long pointed out 
by pubUc opinion as the most fitted to lead, and the 
Prince de Conti was informed that he would command 
the troops in Flanders in the coming campaign. But it 
was too late. Gout and dropsy, aggravated by the irregu- 
larities of his life, carried him off at the early age of forty- 
five, and he died on February 21, 1709, in full possession 
of his faculties up to the very end. 

M. le Due, who had borne him little love in life, saw 
in his corpse a useful pawn for enhancing the status of 
the Princes of the Blood. Many and varied were the 



SOME CELEBRITIES AT THE COURT 99 

stratagems he employed to inveigle the dukes, his peers, 
into some act of respect for the dead which would imply 
a difference of rank. His final effort is perhaps worth 
recording. Wherever the princes had a right to use arm- 
chairs, the dukes claimed and received a similar privilege. 
When, however, they arrived at the church where the 
funeral was being held, they found to their indignation that, 
whereas three such chairs had been provided for the three 
Princes of the Blood, they themselves were expected to sit 
on benches. In answer to their expostulations M. le Due 
replied that there were no more arm-chairs in the church, 
and that it was impossible to obtain others. Whereupon 
the three senior dukes exclaimed that they would imme- 
diately leave the church with all their peers ; but, as they 
were proceeding to carry out their threat, M. le Due 
suddenly discovered that there were a number of the 
necessary chairs at the back of the church ; and a cata- 
strophe was avoided. So little did the solemnity of death 
interfere with the perpetual struggle for place and pre- 
cedence. 

Among the celebrities of the Court who were pointed 
out to the new-comer, there was none whose career had 
been so full of incident as the Due de Lauzun's. He is, 
indeed, a standing illustration of the truth that fact is 
stranger than fiction. The younger son of a noble Gascon 
family, and known in his early days as the Marquis de 
Puygilhem, he came to Court in 1647, at the age of 
fourteen, unburdened with money or scruples and deter- 
mined to push his way to the front. His cousin, the 
Marechal de Gramont, took charge of him, and he re- 
ceived the education of a gentleman ; that is to say, he 
learned to fence, to ride, to dance, and to make pretty 
speeches to a lady. The woman ^ who loved him almost 

' The Grande Mademoiselle, daughter of Gaston Duke of Orleans, who 
was the brother of Louis XIII. 

H 2 



100 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

frantically has described him thus : ' He is a small man, 
but nobody can deny that he has a most pleasing and 
upright figure. His legs are well turned ; his hair is 
scanty, fair, but tinged with grey, badly brushed and 
often greasy ; he has fine blue eyes, which are generally 
bloodshot ; a distinguished air and a pleasing expression. 
His smile is charming. The tip of his nose is pointed 
and red. . . . He is very slovenly in his dress ; when he 
takes pains he looks very well. There is the man ! ' 
His character corresponded with his exterior : he was 
sharp as a needle but wanting in self-control, brave but 
incapable of gratitude, malicious, ambitious, and insolent. 
But, with all his faults, he had an insinuating manner 
which few women could resist ; and, though essen- 
tially ignorant, he was witty and a master of repartee. 
' Nobody,' said a minister's wife affectedly, ' has such a 
harassing time as the man who holds the handle of the 
saucepan.' ' Except,' said Lauzun, ' the people who are 
in the pot.' There was, too, in him a vein of originality, 
which often became mere eccentricity. He would some- 
times array himself in a dressing-gown with his mantle 
thrown over it, a full-bottomed wig with a nightcap on 
the top, and a plumed hat to crown all ; and in this 
costume he would walk up and down his rooms to see if 
any of the servants dared to laugh at him : and woe to 
the knave who even smiled ! 

With his quick wits he was not slow in making his 
way at Court, admired by the women, disliked but feared 
by the men. But his most astonishing triumph was the 
conquest of the king. Lauzun became the first and only 
favourite that Louis XIV ever had. Supple, almost 
abject flattery was largely responsible for his success. 
It tickled Louis' vanity to receive the unquestioning 
homage of a man who was ordinarily so clever and so 
disagreeable, and he was so confident of deserving it that 



SOME CELEBRITIES AT THE COURT 101 

for many years he failed to discover that this lavish 
devotion v^^as not sincere. At twenty-four Lauzun v^as 
given a regiment, and at thirty-six he was promised 
the important post of grand maitre de Vartillerie. But 
the promise was to be kept a profound secret until after a 
council meeting, when the moment had arrived for its offi- 
cial announcement. On the appointed day Lauzun arrived 
early outside the council chamber, and in the fulness of 
his heart confided to Noyert, one of the premiers valets 
de chambre, the honour that was in store for him, Noyert 
looked at his watch and saw that there was still time ; 
then, making a hurried excuse, he withdrew, and rushed 
up to Louvois' room, four stairs at a time. Louvois, 
who was Minister of War and no friend of the favourite, 
in whom he found an obstacle to his ambitions, deter- 
mined to act promptly. He made his way to the council 
chamber and, on the pretext of urgent business, drew 
the king into the embrasure of a window where they 
could talk without being heard. There he implored 
Louis to reconsider his intentions, pointing out that it 
would be fatal to efficiency in the service if the grand 
maitre de Vartillerie were out of touch with the Minister 
of War, and that he, personally, was incapable of work- 
ing harmoniously with Lauzun. Louis, piqued at the 
betrayal of his secret, replied that nothing had yet been 
definitely settled ; and with this answer Louvois went 
away satisfied. Shortly afterwards the council meeting 
broke up, Lauzun, who had seen Louvois enter and 
return, but who was blissfully ignorant of the nature of 
his errand, was waiting impatiently outside. When, how- 
ever, the king came out, he passed the favourite without 
making the expected announcement, and Lauzun went 
back to his rooms discomfited. In the evening, at a 
private audience, Louis explained awkwardly that there 
had been a hitch and that Lauzun must be content to 



102 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

wait a little longer. Disappointed and angry but deter- 
mined to have liis way, the favourite appealed to Madame 
de Montespan. For some reason not wholly intelligible, 
Lauzun had a considerable hold over this lady. Some 
have supposed that she had been his mistress ; but it is 
equally possible that he knew of certain incidents in her 
life which she was anxious to keep secret, notably her 
relations with La Voisin, the famous poisoner and priestess 
of the black arts. Madame de Montespan gave him fair 
words ; but the fair words produced no tangible results, 
and, as the days slipped by, Lauzun began to suspect that 
his fickle friend was playing him false. With the con- 
nivance of a chambermaid he hid himself in Madame de 
Montespan's room, and overheard a conversation between 
the mistress and her royal lover which confirmed his 
suspicions. Furious at the deception which had been 
practised upon him, he took the first opportunity of 
attacking Madame de Montespan, called her by names 
of which ' liar ' was the least offensive, and loaded her 
with reproaches and threats. Two days later he had a 
similar scene with the king, declared that he would 
never serve a king who perjured himself for a harlot, 
drew his sword, and broke it across his knee. Louis was 
equal to the occasion. He turned, and threw the cane he 
was carrying through the open window, saying that he 
would be sorry to have struck a man of quality. And 
with these words he left the room. 

Two months at the Bastille were the punishment for 
this outbreak, but at the end of that time Lauzun was 
back at Court and, to the amazement of all beholders, 
completely re-established in the royal favour. Nor was 
his good fortune yet exhausted, for he was about to be- 
come the hero of a romance which is one of the strangest 
and most pathetic episodes in history. 

In 1669 Mademoiselle de Montpensier, the niece of 



SOME CELEBRITIES AT THE COURT 103 

Louis XIII and first cousin of Louis XIV, fell head 
over ears in love with the disagreeable little count, le petit 
homme as she used to call him. She was a large, mas- 
culine, good-hearted woman, with fair hair and bold 
features. In her youth she had been a heroine of the 
Fronde, had led armies and fired the cannon of the 
Bastille on the royal troops — a feat on which in later 
years the king used to rally her somewhat grimly. The 
richest heiress in Europe, she was ambitious to wear a 
crown; and if she had remained single it was not for 
lack of suitors. Charles II, in the days of his exile, had 
asked for her hand, and the King of Portugal had made 
similar proposals. But the Grande Mademoiselle, as she 
was called, had refused them both, as well as other less 
brilliant offers ; in accepting a husband she was deter- 
mined to please herself, and her independence had led to 
more than one quarrel with the king, who regarded her 
hand, and the fortune that went with it, as a valuable 
pawn in the game of politics. But all her ambitions and 
her masterful ways vanished before the mysterious attrac- 
tions of le petit homme. The Grande Mademoiselle has 
told her love story in her Memoirs with a naivete that 
disarms ridicule. Having once assured herself that she 
could not live without Lauzun, she determined to give 
free play to her affections. * After carefully considering 
the " pros " and the " cons " in my head,' she wrote, ' my 
heart settled the matter, and it was at the Eecollets that 
I formed my final resolution. . . . The next day, which 
was the second of March, I was very happy.' It does 
not seem to have occurred to the poor lady that a humble 
count could fail to return the love of a great princess ; 
and, though she was forty- six and Lauzun ten years 
younger, the disparity in their ages did not alarm her. 
'People of my rank,' she said afterwards, 'are always 
young.' 



104 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

Lauzun, who was accustomed to conquer, soon ob- 
served that the ' vieille fille ' had fallen a victim to his 
charms, but, though he received her advances cordially, 
he regarded the friendship solely from a selfish point of 
view as a useful move in the game he was playing. 
Meanwhile Mademoiselle was thirsting for some tender 
word, or at least some meaning look, in answer to her dumb 
appeals. ' I don't know,' she wrote, ' whether he saw what 
was in my heart. I was dying to give him a chance of 
saying what his own felt for me, but I didn't know how 
to manage it.' At last she determined to have recourse 
to a stratagem which would pique his jealousy at the ex- 
pense of his modesty. * I led him to a window ; his proud 
bearing made him for me the emperor of all the world. 
I began : " You have shown me such real friendship of 
late that I intend to do nothing without your advice. . . . 
People are saying that the king intends to marry me to 
the Prince of Lorraine. Have you heard anything about 
it?" ' For a lover, Lauzun received the news with re- 
markable composure ; but the Grande Mademoiselle was 
not to be daunted and she returned to the charge over 
and over again, hinting that she had made up her mind 
to marry, but refusing to give the name of the husband of 
her choice. Lauzun, who assumed an obtuseness which 
was very alien to his character, often gave the most 
disconcerting advice. He approved of her determination 
to marry. 'Nothing,' he said, 'is so ludicrous as an old 
maid of forty who dresses and enjoys herself like a 
thoughtless girl of fifteen. At that age a woman should 
enter a convent or turn devote, or at least dress modestly 
and give up frivolities. Vespers, sermons, the poor, and 
the sick should be her distractions. Unless, of course, 
she marries . . . For then she will dress like the others 
to please her husband, and go to balls because he wishes 
her to do as everybody else does.' 



SOME CELEBRITIES AT THE COURT 105 

The courtship was still at this stage when a bolt suddenly 
fell from the blue. In June 1670 Monsieur, the king's 
brother, lost his j&rst wife and cast his eyes on the Grande 
Mademoiselle as a possible successor. The king was not 
unfavourable to the scheme, and Mademoiselle was in 
despair. She was determined to have Lauzun and nobody 
but Lauzun. But Lauzun was frightened. To be the 
indirect means of thwarting the royal plans was not the 
way to keep the royal favour, and he forbade Ma- 
demoiselle to see or speak to him. However, the danger 
passed away. The king sounded Mademoiselle on the 
proposed alliance but, finding that she was wholly averse 
from it, he refused to force her inclinations, and Monsieur 
found a second wife elsewhere. The field was once more 
clear, and Mademoiselle, despairing of drawing a declara- 
tion from the reluctant lover, determined to propose her- 
self. Lauzun gave her little help, for he refused to be 
told the name of the man on whom her heart was fixed. 
However, at last it was agreed that she should write it on 
a bit of paper ; she did so, and folding up the note carried 
it to the rendezvous in the queen's apartment. * I pro- 
duced the paper, on which there was a single word but 
one which meant so much, and showed it him; then 
I put it back, first into my pocket and afterwards into my 
muff. He urged me to give it to him and said that his 
heart was beating ; before giving it to him I said, " You 
must answer on the same sheet." ' Thus encouraged 
Lauzun at last decided to play for the big stakes and 
allowed Mademoiselle to write to the king. Louis, urged 
on by Madame de Montespan, gave his consent, and the 
engagement was made public. 

It created something like consternation. Under the 
ancien regime rank was regarded as a sacred and divinely 
appointed institution, and a marriage between the heir to 
some modern European throne and a negress would create 



106 THE GEE AT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

almost less excitement nowadays than was caused by this 
mesalliance between a princess of the royal blood and a 
simple count. Louis was overwhelmed with reproaches ; 
even the timid queen ventured to protest, and the Princes 
of the Blood were furious at what they regarded as 
an insult to their order. Nor were the bourgeoisie and 
artisans of Paris behindhand with their disapproval. 
The thing shocked their notions of what was fit and 
proper and upset all their preconceived ideas about the 
scheme of life. In a moment the Grande Mademoiselle 
fell from the rank of heroine to that of hysterical old 
maid, and never recovered her popularity. 

Meanwhile, friends of this strange couple had been 
urging them to take advantage of the king's permission 
and to get married out of hand. But Lauzun was intoxi- 
cated with success : he wanted a great wedding, and a 
great wedding meant delay. At last, however, made 
uneasy by the growing resentment which was mani- 
fested on all sides, he consented to be married quietly at a 
friend's house at Charenton. But this prudent decision 
came too late. Madame de Montespan, alarmed at the 
unpopularity which her part in the affair was sure to 
bring upon her, spoke to the king, and Louis, who had had 
no idea what a nest of hornets he was stirring up by his 
good-nature, withdrew his consent. On the eve of the 
wedding, at 8 p.m., the Grande Mademoiselle received a 
summons to the Tuileries and was shown by a private 
door into the king's room, where the great Conde was 
concealed behind a curtain. ' I found the king alone, 
much moved, and sad. He said to me : " I am in despair 
about what I have to say to you. I have been told that I 
was sacrificing you to make the fortune of M. de Lauzun, 
that this would produce an unfavourable impression 
abroad, and that I ought not to allow the match to be 
concluded. You have good cause to complain of me. 



SOME CELEBRITIES AT THE COURT 107 

Beat me if you like : there is no mark of indignation 
which I do not deserve from you and to which I will not 
submit." " Ah ! Sire," I cried, " what are you saying ! 
How cruel ! " He threw himself on his knees ; I did the 
same, and for three-quarters of an hour we remained 
clasped in one another's arms, his cheek resting against 
mine : he wept as freely as myself. " Ah, why did you 
give me time to think ? " he cried, " why didn't you make 
haste?'" 

But, though the king had tears and sympathy in 
abundance, he was inexorable. On her way back to the 
Luxembourg, Mademoiselle had an attack of nerves and 
broke the glass of her carriage. After which she went to 
bed and stayed there for some days, receiving visits of 
condolence. Louis was amongst the visitors. The scene 
of tears was repeated, and cheek was pressed once more to 
cheek. One solid advantage Mademoiselle drew from the 
king's remorse, namely permission to see Lauzun when- 
ever and wherever she pleased. It was almost tantamount 
to the royal sanction of a secret marriage, and perhaps it 
was so construed : but there is no certainty on the point. 
Anyhow, when Mademoiselle had recovered from the first 
shock of disappointment, she spent much of her time with 
le petit liomme, who certainly treated her as her lord and 
master. She had already made over to him the Comte 
d'Eu and the principality of Dombes. But any hopes she 
may have formed of peace and happiness were shattered 
by the folly of le petit homme. Lauzun had discovered 
the double treachery of Madame de Montespan, and he 
was furious. Once more he repeated a former scene with 
her, and went about publicly denouncing her in the salons 
and the clubs. Madame de Montespan was frightened, 
for Lauzun was a dangerous and a reckless enemy. On 
November 25, 1671, he was arrested in his rooms at St. 
Germain and taken under close guard to the gloomy 



108 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

Chateau of Pignerol, where Foucquet had already spent 
seventeen years in a kind of living death. 

Saint-Mars, the governor of this prison, v^rote to 
Louvois to apprise him of the preparations he had made 
for the expected guest. 

' M. de Nallot . . . will tell you how I am preparing 
for M. de Lauzun. He will tell you, Monseigneur, that 
I shall lodge him in the two rooms below M. Foucquet ; 
they are the same that you saw, with windows guarded 
on the inside by great bars of iron ; my arrangements are 
such that I can answer for it, on my life, that M. de 
Lauzun will not be able to escape or receive any commu- 
nication from outside. I pledge my word of honour, 
Monseigneur, that you will never hear speak of him, so 
long as he is in my keeping, any more than if he were 
dead . . . The place which I am preparing for him is so 
situated that I cannot make holes in the wall to watch 
him ; but I intend to know what he does and says, down 
to the minutest detail, through the valet whom I shall 
give him. I have procured one with much difficulty, and 
it is this class of people who are my chief worry, because 
they don't like to spend all their lives in prison . . .' 

Saint-Mars did his best to fulfil his promises ; but the 
valet refused to play the spy. He was threatened with 
torture and the direst penalties, but, as it was found im- 
possible to replace him, his defection had to be tolerated. 
In other respects the programme was rigidly carried out. 
For six years Lauzun never left his prison, was entirely 
cut off from communication with the outer world, and 
had no occupation. It was only after some years that he 
was allowed one or two pious books ; so great was the 
fear that they might be used as a vehicle for corre- 
spondence ; and his linen was carefully examined each 
time it came back from the wash lest it should contain 
some secret message. Saint-Mars visited his prisoner 



SOME CELEBRITIES AT THE COURT 109 

twice daily, but he was forbidden to answer questions, 
and Lauzun was not even allowed to know whether his 
mother were alive or dead. At first it seemed likely that 
he would go mad. He neglected his person, allowed his 
beard to grow, and refused to speak to his gaoler ; and his 
long fits of depression were only broken by outbursts of 
hysterical passion. But at last he found the necessary 
occupation which alone could save his brain from decay 
and give life a meaning. For three years he was busy 
planning an escape. With old nails and the blades of 
broken knives he tunnelled through the stone floor of his 
room till he had scraped out a passage large enough to 
admit his somewhat diminutive person. At the bottom 
he found himself in an empty chamber lighted by a barred 
window. By dint of patient industry he chipped off an 
angle of this window and removed one bar ; then, letting 
himself down into the dry moat by a ladder made of 
towels, which he had carefully hidden, he burrowed under 
the wall and emerged one February morning in 1676 in 
a courtyard of the citadel. Unfortunately, instead of 
an open door he found an incorruptible sentry, and was 
marched ignominiously back to his cell. 

However, he was no longer cut off entirely from 
human companionship ; he had found a way to Foucquet's 
room through the broad chimney, and though Foucquet, 
when he heard tell of the projected marriage with the 
Grande Mademoiselle, felt sure that he was dealing with 
a madman, even mad visitors are welcome in a prison, 
and Lauzun frequently made the ascent of the chimney. 
In 1677, on the death of his elder brother, he was allowed 
to receive a business visit from his sister and younger 
brother. Lauzun played the part of the dazed and broken 
man so well that the sister fainted and the brother burst 
into tears. From this time onwards his lot became some- 
what brighter. He was allowed to ride on the bastions 



110 THE GEE AT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

and even to entertain guests at dinner ; and meanwhile 
events were happening which were soon to procure his 
liberty. 

For the Grande Mademoiselle's affection had proved 
stronger than time or jealousy. When Lauzun was 
arrested his private papers had been seized, and the num- 
ber of affectionate letters from Court beauties which 
were found amongst them proved a nine days' wonder. 
Mademoiselle was duly informed of the event, but with 
chivalrous self-command she refused to be influenced by 
it. She also had the courage not to show her resentment 
to the king or Madame de Montespan ; and, though her 
piteous letters remained unanswered, she was assiduous 
in her attendance at Court, hoping that her red eyes and 
sad face would at least prevent the king from forgetting 
Lauzun's existence. At last, in the spring of 1680, her 
patience was rewarded. Madame de Montespan suddenly 
became friendly. ' Think,' she kept on saying, ' what 
you can do to please the king and so win him to grant 
what you so much desire.' It turned out that the thing 
which would best please the king would be for Mademoi- 
selle to bestow on his favourite bastard the Comte d'Eu 
and the principality of Dombes, which she had already 
given to Lauzun. She was in fact to ransom the captive. 
She hesitated for a while but at last gave in, and it only 
remained to secure Lauzun's renunciation. With this 
object in view he was taken to Bourbon for his health, 
and Madame de Montespan journeyed thither to see him in 
person. But the captive thought the bargain too one- 
sided, and had to go back to prison again till he had 
learned sense. At last in 1681 he became a free man ; 
but, instead of the expected permission to return to court, 
he received orders to go and live at Amboise. 

Mademoiselle was indignant. She thought that she 
had purchased, not only complete freedom for her lover, 



SOME CELEBRITIES AT THE COURT 111 

but the right to a public marriage, and she found that she 
had been duped. Madame de Montespan, reproached 
with her perfidy, replied cynically that a king doesn't 
bargain, and that, personally, she had pledged herself to 
nothing. So, with admirable good sense, Mademoiselle 
resolved once more to make the best of things. She 
induced the king to revoke his order of banishment ; 
Lauzun was to be permitted to pay his respects to the 
monarch once : after which he might live where he 
pleased, provided that the place were nowhere near the 
Court. The ill-matched couple met once more at Ver- 
sailles after a separation of ten years, during which 
neither of them had grown younger ; and the meeting 
was a disappointment. Mademoiselle was waiting for 
her lover in Madame de Montespan's room. ' He came 
to me after seeing the king ; he had on an old doublet, all 
torn, and a shocking wig. He threw himself at my feet 
and did it with a good grace. Then Madame de Monte- 
span took us into her cabinet and said, " You will like to 
speak to one another alone." She went out, and I 
followed her.' 

If they had not been married before, the pair were 
certainly married now ; and, after a few preliminary 
skirmishes, the Grande Mademoiselle carried off her 
truant husband to the Chateau d'Eu. But, in spite of 
the cupids which adorned the ceilings, love or gratitude 
did not enter into the petit liomme's feelings towards his 
wife. He courted the maids under the very eyes of the 
jealous lady, and there were scenes. Mademoiselle turned 
him out of doors, and to win back her favour he had 
to perform an act of humiliating penance. There was 
at the Chateau a long gallery lined with portraits : 
Mademoiselle stood at one end, Lauzun at the other; 
and he had to reach her on his knees ! But the re- 
conciliation was only temporary. The quarrels became 



112 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

more bitter and violent and not infrequently ended 
in blows. The final rupture took place in the spring 
of 1684. Lauzun had asked for permission to accom- 
pany the king to the war in Spain, and his request had 
been refused. He thought, probably without any justi- 
fication, that Mademoiselle was at the bottom of the 
refusal, and there was a scene at the Luxembourg. ' I 
met him with a smiling face and said, " You must go 
off to Lauzun or Saint-Fargeau ; for, as you are not to 
accompany the king, it would be absurd for you to 
remain in Paris, and I should be sorry for people to think 
that I am the cause of your being left behind." He said, 
" I am off, and I bid you good-bye for the last time." 
I replied, " My life would have been happier if I had 
never seen you, but better late than never." "You have 
ruined me," he replied ; " you have practically cut my 
throat ; you are responsible for my not accompanying 
the King ; you asked him to refuse me." " Oh, as for 
that," I said, "it's a lie; he will tell you so himself." 
He grew very angry, and I remained perfectly calm. 
" Good-bye, then," I said, and went into my private 
room. When I came back after a certain time he was 
still there. ... I went up to him, saying, " This is too 
much ! Keep to your resolution and begone." He 
withdrew.' 

The Grande Mademoiselle kept to hers, refused all 
overtures of peace, and never again saw the man for 
whom she had made so many and such fruitless sacrifices. 
For a time she sought consolation in religion, but, failing 
to find it there, she returned feverishly to the pleasures 
of Court, and died in 1693. 

After the final scene at the Luxembourg, Lauzun had 
discovered too late that he had killed the goose which 
laid the golden eggs. Despairing of retrieving his for- 
tunes in France, he determined to try his luck in England 



SOME CELEBRITIES AT THE COURT 113 

at the Court of James II. Once more his star was in 
the ascendant. He reached our shores in 1688, and the 
revolution which cost James II his crown restored 
Lauzun to the royal favour. Eising to the height of 
his opportunities, he planned and carried out the flight 
of the queen and her son, and appeared one morning at 
Calais with his precious charge, a hero of romance. The 
exiled king presented him with the Order of the Garter, 
and Louis XIV wrote him an autograph letter of thanks. 
The han was removed, and, in spite of the Grande 
Mademoiselle's protests, he returned to the Court. As 
a reward for his services he was given the command of 
a French army sent to Ireland to support the cause of 
the Stuart dynasty. But he showed no capacity and 
was soon back in France. Louis made him a duke, but 
he received no further employment. 

On the death of the Grande Mademoiselle he went 
into deep mourning, and two years afterwards, in 1695, 
he married the youngest daughter of the Marechal de 
Lorges and thus became Saint-Simon's brother-in-law. 
His second wife was fourteen years of age at the time 
of her marriage, and her husband sixty-two. She ex- 
pected soon to become a widow and thought that a few 
years of daily companionship with the most disagreeable 
man in France was not too big a price to pay for wealth 
and the title of duchess. But Lauzun upset her calcu- 
lations by living for another twenty-eight years —jealous, 
malicious, witty ; an amusing man to meet and an im- 
possible one to live with. As such he had a host of 
acquaintances and no friends. At ninety he was still 
breaking in horses, and he retained his love of practical 
joking to the last. ' In his extreme age he had an illness 
which nearly proved fatal. One day, when he was very 
ill, he saw in a mirror that two of his heirs had entered 
the room on tiptoe and were hiding behind the curtains 

I 



114 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

to see if they could discover how soon they were likely 
to come into their inheritance. Lauzun pretended not 
to see them and began to pray aloud, like a man who 
believes himself to be alone. He asked God to pardon 
his past life and regretted that he had no time left for 
penance. There was but one way left to him, he said, of 
winning salvation, and that was to employ all the wealth 
that God had given him in atoning for his sins ; and he took 
a solemn vow that he would leave all that he possessed, 
without a single exception, to the hospitals. He made 
this declaration with such fervour that his heirs fled in 
dismay to relate the disaster to Madame de Lauzun.' ^ 

He was carried off at last by a cancer in the mouth. 
As soon as he realised the incurable nature of his malady 
he retired to a small suite of rooms which he had hired 
previously, in the convent of the Petits-Augustins, as a 
kind of lair to which he might retreat and die. There he 
remained inaccessible to all except his wife and nearest 
relations, intent on making his peace with Heaven, and 
bearing his cruel sufferings with stoical courage. He died 
on November 19, 1723, aged ninety years and six months, 
and left no children. 

Another romance, of a somewhat similar kind, ended 
more happily. ' There are,' says Saint-Simon, ' at all 
Courts, some remarkable people who, without great ability, 
distinguished birth, or influence, manage to work their 
way into the intimacy of the elite, and finally, no one 
exactly knows how, become a power to be reckoned 
with. Such a one was Cavoye.' His mother, a member 
of the petite noblesse and a clever woman, had had the 
good fortune to please the dowager queen, Anne of Austria, 
and had taken advantage of the circumstances to launch 
her son at Court. Cavoye was one of the best made men in 
France, and one of the best dressed, and this fact, coupled 

' Saint- Simon. 



SOME CELEBRITIES AT THE COUET 115 

with a reputation as a duellist which had earned him the 
title of le brave Cavoye, made him a favourite with the 
ladies. The king also took a fancy to him, and when, 
piqued at being omitted from the list of promotions to the 
order of the Saint-Esprit, Cavoye threatened to retire from 
Court, Louis personally entreated him to stay and promised 
to provide for his future. Among the maids of honour of 
Queen Marie-Therese was a certain Mile, de Coetlogon, 
plain, sensible, naive, kind-hearted, and generally popular. 
She fell violently in love with the handsome Cavoye and 
made no attempt to conceal her feelings. But Cavoye 
had no sympathy with the victim of his charms : he was 
cold, sometimes almost brutal to her, and extremely 
annoyed at the ridiculous position in which she placed 
him. For, though there were people who were sorry for 
the lady, her behaviour gave much cause for mirth to the 
wags of the Court. When Cavoye was sent on active 
service. Mile, de Coetlogon was continually in tears and 
went into half -mourning while the campaign lasted ; and 
when, one winter, the gallant was sent to the Bastille for 
acting as second in a duel, the scenes were even more 
heart-rending. Mile, de Coetlogon implored the king to 
show mercy, and on his refusal threatened the royal 
visage with her nails. At dinner, which the king took 
daily in public with the queen, it was the duty of the 
maids of honour to wait at table ; but so long as Cavoye 
remained in the Bastille Mile, de Coetlogon refused to 
serve the king, either evading the duty or saying point 
blank that he was not worthy of such service ; till at last 
Louis took pity on her and told the Duchesse de Riche- 
lieu to take her occasionally to visit Cavoye in his 
captivity. 

When finally the prisoner was released, Louis sent for 
him and offered him the post of Grand Marechal des 
Logis, on condition that he consented to marry the love- 

I 2 



116 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

sick maid. At first Cavoye sniffed at the proposal, but, 
finding that a refusal would mean the end of his career, 
he gave a grudging assent. Contrary to what might 
have been expected, the marriage turned out happily. 
Mile, de Coetlogon never lost her admiration for Cavoye, 
and he, though he was sometimes embarrassed by her 
public caresses, was a good husband. Their home was 
the rendezvous of the flower of society, and constituted a 
tribunal of taste whose censure no one cared to incur. 

Another person of somewhat the same type was 
Langlee. * He was,' says Saint-Simon, * originally a no- 
body, but his mother, a clever and intriguing femme de 
chamhre of Anne d'Autriche, had made for herself influ- 
ential friends, and planted her son at Court in the best 
society. Langlee made his debut at the card table. He 
was doubly fortunate, for he not only gained enormous 
wealth, but was never once suspected of tampering with 
the cards. With very moderate abilities but a profound 
knowledge of the world, he knew how to lend gracefully 
and to wait still more gracefully for repayment ; and, in 
this way, he earned the reputation of being a generous 
and obliging friend. A friend of Monsieur and Mon- 
seigneur, both of whom loved high play, he never lost sight 
of the king, and gradually made himself indispensable at 
all shows and spectacles. He was invited to the Coxxxi fetes 
and all the Court journeys, including the Marlis ; he was 
intimate with all the king's mistresses and afterwards 
with the king's daughters, and was on such familiar terms 
with the latter that he often ventured to tell them un- 
pleasant truths. He established himself as an authority 
on entertainments and fashions to such an extent that, 
from the Princes of the Blood downwards, no one gave a 
fete without asking his advice, and no one built or bought 
a house without consulting him on its arrangement, its 
decoration, and its furniture. If a marriage was to be 



SOME CELEBRITIES AT THE COURT 117 

celebrated, it was Langlee who designed the dresses and 
selected the presents ; if a love affair was developing, it 
was Langlee who was called in as confidant ; for he was 
discreet, secret as the grave, and ready to help a friend 
with his purse or his counsel. The king tolerated him, 
but everybody else bowed down before him, and at his 
house in Paris he entertained the pick of the Court, in- 
cluding the Princes of the Blood, with almost royal mag- 
nificence ; and there was nobody, however exalted, who 
was not pleased to attract his friendship.' 

A wholly different type of man, but a type that was 
beginning to come into prominence, was the great 
financier. The prejudice of the landed aristocracy against 
trade had, it is true, not yet been broken down ; but long 
and costly wars had rendered borrowing on a large scale 
inevitable and enhanced the importance of the money- 
lender, and even the proudest of monarchs had to humble 
himself when his exchequer was empty. 

The wealthiest and most adventurous financier of the 
day was Samuel Bernard, a name which sent a cold 
shiver through the blue blood of the de la Eochefoucaulds 
and the Montmorencys. He had purchased the seigneurie 
of Eieux, and with it a doubtful claim to the title of 
Baron ; but his descendants were compelled to resell 
the property to the son of the former owner at the 
original price. He had business dealings in most of the 
countries of Europe, but the bulk of his fortune was made 
in France. In 1708 the king had need of further 
advances, but Samuel Bernard, the only man who was 
capable of negotiating the loan, proved obdurate, and 
Desmarets, the directeur des finances, was in despair. 
As a last resource Bernard was requested to come to 
Marly on business. There the king met him as if by 
accident, and after remarking that he was pleased to find 
him with Desmarets, said suddenly : ' I shouldn't wonder 



118 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

if you had never seen the gardens ! Come and join me 
in my walk and I will return you to Desmarets after- 
wards.' Bernard followed. The king talked much to 
him and pointed out the objects of interest with the 
grace and charm of manner which he knew well how to 
employ. No doubt this condescension cost the royal 
pride more than one pang : but the humiliation had its 
compensations. Bernard was vain, and the purse-strings 
were untied. The great financier could refuse nothing to 
so affable a king. But he had to pay for his weakness. 
In 1709 he became bankrupt at Lyons ; Desmarets, how- 
ever, came to his assistance and tided him over the crisis. 
There were unkind tongues which insisted that Bernard 
had made of his bankruptcy a profitable speculation ; 
certainly, when he died thirty- five years later, he left 
behind him an enormous fortune. 

If Samuel Bernard represented the coming race, de la 
Eochefoucauld, whose permanent favour earned him the 
title of ' the king's friend,' was a typical specimen of the 
old nobility who went under at the Eevolution. His 
career, like that of many notable figures of the day, was 
full of the unexpected. The son of a father whose ser- 
vices to the Fronde had earned him the king's undying 
enmity, and himself destitute of talents, he seemed to 
have but little chance of rising to favour in a hostile Court. 
But Louis took a fancy to him ; his very lack of intel- 
lectual gifts made his company agreeable to a young and 
proud monarch who felt his own ignorance acutely. De 
la Eochefoucauld became indispensable and was made 
grand maitre de la garde-robe and subsequently grand 
veneur. ' He was,' says Saint-Simon, ' a man of courage 
and of honour, but entirely moulded at Court, magnificent 
in everything, superior to display, a good and serviceable 
friend, and not afraid of braving the royal prejudices on 
behalf of those whom he desired to serve.' On the other 



SOME CELEBRITIES AT THE COURT 119 

hand, * he was extraordinarily ignorant, vain, hard, jealous 
of all rival influences, and, though he had spent his life at 
Court, ill at ease with all but his inferiors.' His favour 
with the king was so firmly established that it was 
regarded as unshakeable and survived the personal dis- 
like of Madame de Maintenon. But he had to pay dearly 
for it. On the one hand there was dirty work to be done 
as messenger between the king and his many mistresses, 
and on the other there was the daily attendance on a 
monarch who was never prepared to waive his personal 
claims on his friends. The daily lever and coucher and the 
two other changes of the royal garments, the walk in the 
gardens, the hunt in the forest — these were functions 
which de la Rochefoucauld was never allowed to miss, 
year in year out. Three or four times in the year he 
dined in Paris, and rather oftener in a small house he 
owned near Versailles ; and four or five times in his life 
he obtained permission to go to the country for a few 
weeks. For the rest of a long life he was attached like a 
body-slave to his royal friend, without holidays and even 
without permission to be ill. 

His rooms at Versailles were always open from morn- 
ing to night ; but, owing to the insolence of his servants, 
whom he spoiled, they were little frequented by the elite. 
They were, however, crowded by the idlers and bores of 
the Court, who made them their asylum, took their meals 
in them, and endured patiently the ill-humour of the 
master. For his wife and children he had no affection, 
and he was the slave of his own servants. The evening 
of his life was clouded by disappointment ; he had the 
misfortune to grow old and blind and to outstay his wel- 
come. * In his latter days his valets abused his good- 
nature and made him ask such ridiculous favours from 
the king, on behalf of themselves and their friends, that 
Louis grew accustomed to refuse, and the favourite to 



120 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

complain. Moreover his sight was faihng rapidly and he 
could with difficulty perform his duties as grand veneur. 
Unable any longer to mount a horse, he followed the 
chase in a carriage. When the stag was killed, he got 
out of his carriage and was led towards the king to pre- 
sent him with the foot, and not infrequently, through 
defective sight, he would thrust the gory trophy into the 
royal eyes or ears. Louis sometimes ventured to urge 
him gently to take his well-earned rest ; but the thought 
of abdication was painful to the aging favourite, and he 
clung desperately to the duties which he was no longer 
able to perform.' ^ At length, in 1709, pride came to his 
rescue ; and, with bitterness and despair in his heart, he 
withdrew from the Court. Even then his servants were 
determined to keep him within striking distance of the 
monarch, in order that they might enjoy such benefits as 
he could wring from the wreck of his credit or the king's 
pity. They took him to Le Chenil, at Versailles, where 
solitary, blind, unoccupied, and a prey to his servants, 
he tasted the bitterness of fallen greatness. He died in 
the January of 1714, a year and a half before his royal 
master. 

A more attractive and, perhaps, a more typical 
character, was the Marechale de Villeroy, mother of the 
general whose incapacity lost France the battle of 
Eamillies. ' She was extremely short, with scarcely any 
neck, and so stout that she could hardly move : her arms 
were as big as an ordinary leg, but she had a delicate 
wrist and beautiful small hands. Her face was exactly 
like a parrot's, with large, prominent, and short-sighted 
eyes. She walked, too, like a parrot. In spite of this 
unpromising exterior nobody was ever more imposing. 
With a distinguished bearing she combined a noble and 
discriminating courtesy. Nobody, too, had more wit or 

' Saint-Simon. 



SOME CELEBRITIES AT THE COURT 121 

a more plentiful stock of common-sense, with a way of 
saying things which was peculiar to herself. Humorous 
and amusing when she chose to be so, she never forgot 
her dignity. Her advice was always excellent, she 
was the surest of friends, and, in spite of her pride, a 
delightful companion. The king and Madame de Main- 
tenon were afraid of her, and, though she lived at Ver- 
sailles, she never attempted to win their favour. ' ^ Nee 
Cosse, with the bluest of blood, she despised the humble 
origin of the Villeroys. Nevertheless she had the good 
sense to live amicably with her husband, though she 
could never accustom herself to his bourgeois habit of 
removing his wig in private. Like so many of her con- 
temporaries, as soon as she felt the hand of death closing 
upon her, she withdrew from the Court and the society of 
her friends to spend the remaining months of her life in 
retirement, praying in her armchair or listening to pious 
books which were read to her by her servants. She died in 
1708 at the age of sixty. 

If the Court of Versailles was too often the home of 
frivolity and worthlessness, it offered some examples of 
rare and striking goodness. Such pre-eminently were 
the lives of the Dues de Beauvillier and Chevreuse. They 
had both married daughters of Colbert and lived in such 
intimate relations that the two households formed one 
family. In many respects the two men were very dis- 
similar. Beauvillier was the practical man, Chevreuse 
the dreamer ; Beauvillier was precise, methodical, and 
punctual, apologising to his coachman if he kept him 
waiting a minute beyond the appointed time ; Chevreuse, 
the more talented of the two, was unbusiness-like in his 
habits, sanguine, and careless. But they were alike in the 
simplicity of their characters and in a charity which was a 
mute reproach to the scandal-loving gossiping tongues of 
' Saint-Simon. 



122 THE GEEAT DAYS OF VEKSAILLES 

Versailles. Intrigue and jealousy surged round them 
unheeded and often unobserved ; and they were, perhaps, 
the only men of their position who not only would not 
repeat, but would not even believe, evil of their neigh- 
bours. 

Beauvillier had the more distinguished career. His 
solid worth attracted the king's admiration at a time 
when Louis honoured virtue more in the abstract than 
by example. One day, during the royal walk, Beauvillier 
was slightly ahead of the others, alone and deep in 
thought. One of the courtiers called attention to the 
fact, remarking sarcastically that the duke was probably 
at his prayers again. The king overheard the taunt and, 
turning round, said quietly, ' Yes, that is M. de Beau- 
villier, one of the wisest men at my Court or in my 
kingdom.' This unexpected eulogy marked Beauvillier 
out as a likely subject for preferment, and in due course 
of time he became President of the Council of Finance 
and a member of the Council of State, being the only 
duke who attained to the position of minister throughout 
the long reign. When the time came to appoint a 
gouverneu?- for the Due de Bourgogne, Louis selected 
Beauvillier, and the choice was universally approved. His 
friendship with Fenelon was within an ace of costing him 
his place. Fenelon had been the spiritual adviser and 
trusted ally of the two dukes and of a select group of 
the more serious spirits at Court, which for a time had 
included Madame de Maintenon in its ranks. When the 
taint of Quietism banished Fenelon to Cambrai and his 
book was condemned by the Pope, it was generally sup- 
posed that the two friends would share his disgrace. 
Heterodoxy was with Louis the one unpardonable sin, 
and he hesitated for some time between what he believed 
to be his duty and what he felt instinctively would be 
a mistake. In the end instinct proved stronger than 



SOME CELEBRITIES AT THE COURT 123 

principle : Beauvillier retained his post and, though at- 
tempts were sometimes made subsequently to shake his 
credit, they always failed in their object. 

Perhaps compassion helped to fortify Louis' regard 
for his minister ; for, in 1705, Beauvillier suffered a cruel 
domestic bereavement. He had two sons, aged respec- 
tively seventeen and sixteen, and small-pox carried them 
both off within a week of one another. ' I know no 
sermon,' says Saint-Simon, ' so touching as the grief and 
profound resignation of the bereaved father and mother, 
their bitter sense of loss which never mastered their entire 
submission to the will of God, the gentle calm exterior, 
and the hopeful words which sanctified their tears. 
After the first weeks I tried gently to change the conver- 
sation when M. de Beauvillier spoke to me of his dead 
children. He noticed it, said that he knew I meant to 
be kind, and thanked me for my good intentions ; but 
he added that there were so few people to whom he could 
speak about his loss that he begged me to continue the 
subject when he began it, as he only did so when he felt 
a pressing need, and to talk relieved him. I obeyed him, 
and often afterwards, when we were alone, he talked to 
me about his boys ; and I saw that to do so was, in fact, 
a comfort to him.' 

The lives of both of these men were so much of a 
piece that there is little of a sensational character to 
relate about them. They proved that it was possible to 
be respected and influential at Court without employing 
the arts of a courtier. Chevreuse died first, in 1712, 
Beauvillier two years later. Thus they both escaped 
witnessing the moral degradation of French society 
during the Eegency. 

Though Vatteville was not a leading figure in court 
life at Versailles, his career was so extraordinary that 
it deserves a brief mention, if only to show what 



124 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

possibilities there were at this time for unscrupulous 
daring when it had the sanction of good birth. 

The Abbe de Vatteville belonged to a noble family of 
Franche-Comte, and his elder brother had been Spanish 
ambassador in London in 1661, at a time when Franche- 
Comte still formed part of the Spanish Netherlands. The 
abbe had early in life entered a Carthusian monastery 
and had been ordained priest. But the restrictions of 
monastic life were little suited to his roving and arbitrary 
disposition. A secular disguise, money, a brace of pistols, 
and a horse which he kept at a short distance from the 
convent, enabled him for a time to vary the monotony of 
prayers and fasts. But the Prior got wind of his irregular 
proceedings and, entering his cell one night with a pass- 
key, found the enterprising monk booted and spurred and 
on the point of descending a rope ladder which he had 
fastened to the window. The predicament was an awk- 
ward one, but Vatteville rose to the occasion and, drawing 
his pistol, shot the intruder dead. After which he fled 
across country by solitary paths. On the third day he 
came to a lonely inn, with an appetite whetted by exer- 
cise and fasting, and asked the landlord what there was in 
the larder. The landlord replied that there was a leg of 
mutton and a fowl, and Vatteville ordered them both to 
be prepared without delay. When the meal was on the 
point of being served, another traveller appeared on the 
scene, likewise bent upon dining, and, hearing from the 
landlord that the victuals were all bespoken, he went up 
to Vatteville' s room and proposed politely that, on due 
payment, he should be allowed a share in the entertain- 
ment which was enough for more than two hungry men. 
Vatteville refused point blank ; the stranger expostulated, 
and expostulations degenerated into a quarrel, to which 
Vatteville put an end by shooting the unfortunate guest. 
He then ate his dinner undisturbed and rode off. 



SOME CELEBRITIES AT THE COURT 125 

Convinced that Christian Europe was no longer a safe 
place for him, he made his way to Constantinople, ahjured 
his faith, and took service in the army. Fortune smiled 
upon him ; he was made Pasha and given a command in 
the Morea, where the Sultan was engaged in warfare with 
the Venetian Eepublic. But Vatteville was now pining 
for home, and entered into negotiations with the Italian 
generals. He offered to betray several strong positions 
and bargained that, in return, the Venetians should obtain 
from the Pope complete absolution for his crimes and 
apostasy, protection against the Carthusians, and full 
restitution of his rights as priest. In the interests of 
Christendom the Pope consented to the bargain ; the con- 
tract was drawn up in due form, and Vatteville handed 
over the fortresses to the enemy. After serving for a 
short time with the Venetian army, he took ship to 
Europe and reappeared in his native Franche-Comte. 
When Louis conquered and annexed the province, Vatte- 
ville rendered important services to the French cause, 
and, as modesty was not amongst his failings, he de- 
manded as a recompense the Archbishopric of Besangon. 
But the Pope was reluctant to grant the bull, and the 
ex-monk had to be content with the abbey of Beaume, an 
estate in Picardy, and several other privileges. The rest 
of his life he spent, partly in his abbey, partly on .his 
estates, occasionally visiting the Court, where he was 
always well received. He kept a fine pack of hounds, 
and an open table which was honoured by the best of 
company ; tyrannised over his dependents and defied the 
tax collectors, who had orders from the Court to wink at 
his proceedings. "When other amusements failed, he 
would ride over to the Carthusian monastery to gibe at 
the monks and enjoy their discomfiture. He died at 
length in 1702 at the age of ninety, full of years and of 
honours. 



126 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 



CHAPTEE V 

LOUIS XIV 

Character — Education — Death of Mazarin — The new regime — His ideas 
of kingship — His marriage — Mistresses — Saved by Madame de Main- 
tenon — Secret marriage. 

The central figure of the daily pageant of Versailles, the 
sun round which the lesser lights revolved and from 
which they took a reflected glory, was Louis XIV. His 
contemporaries, dazzled by the splendour of his early 
achievements and the proud position amongst the nations 
to which he had raised France, bestowed on him the title 
of ' the Great.' We, who look back across the centuries, 
can see that the ruinous wars in which he involved his 
country, and the cast-iron system under which he fettered 
her liberties, paved the way for the Eevolution and the 
downfall of the monarchy. He created nothing perma- 
nent. His conception of sovereignty, which was the 
guiding principle of his life, has been discredited ; and 
the social system which was the foundation of his fabric 
has been swept away. Only his lust for an unreal glory 
and his craving for an impossible uniformity remain — the 
eternal stumbling-block alike of ambitious monarchs and 
rich democracies. 

But, if his contemporaries overrated him as a king, 
we are perhaps in danger of underrating him as a man. 
It is unfortunate that Saint- Simon, whose graphic pen 
has done much to fix our ideas of Louis, only knew him 



LOUIS XIV 127 

in the later years of a long life and was influenced by a 
political bias which may have been justified but was cer- 
tainly strong ; unfortunate, too, that the painter Rigaud 
has given us so striking and dramatic a conception of the 
monarch in his old age that we are apt to forget the 
earlier busts by Bernini and Coysevox. 

In such a complex character as that which Louis XIV 
presents to the biographer, so full of contradictions, so beset 
with unexpected shallows and equally unexpected depths, it 
is well to fix at the outset a few of the permanent qualities 
which, through stress and strain, were always operative 
and helped to shape the actions and the habits of the 
man. Like most of the Bourbons, Louis was endowed 
with a strong physique, a prodigious appetite, and an 
unusually large element of the animal in his composition. 
His constitution was not naturally robust, and the ex- 
cessive amount of food which he consumed daily was the 
cause of frequent attacks of dyspepsia in youth and of gout 
in old age. On the other hand, he possessed great recu- 
perative powers, a marked capacity for continuous work, 
and a useful faculty of doing with little sleep. With the 
Bourbon physique he inherited the Bourbon brain, slow, 
tenacious, and unimaginative, but capable of forming 
sound judgments. 

Nearly all his contemporaries, even those who had 
most cause to judge him harshly, were agreed that the 
king was naturally 'kind and just.' Saint-Simon, the 
Grande Mademoiselle, and Madame the Princess Palatine 
never doubted that, if the king could only be made to see 
on which side justice lay, he would do the right thing. 
Unfortunately the aloofness in which he lived made him 
difficult to approach, while his slow intelligence and deep- 
rooted prejudices made him equally difficult to convince ; 
and a capacity for believing that things were what he 
wished them to be — dangerous in a private individual and 



128 THE GREAT DAYS OF VEESAILLES 

fatal in a ruler — prevented him from correcting a false im- 
pression or reversing a mistaken policy. 

Though not gifted with a quick intelligence, Louis 
possessed great powers of will. Nobody was better able 
to conceal the thoughts and emotions that surged within 
him under a calm and impassive exterior. This gift of 
dignified self-control, which was never more noticeable 
than in the misfortunes which clouded the closing years of 
his reign, impressed his contemporaries with a feeling that 
almost amounted to awe ; and though it sometimes laid 
him open to a charge of duplicity, it won him the respect 
of a quick-tempered and emotional race, who were 
accustomed to feel strongly and to speak as they felt. A 
modern parallel might perhaps be found in the influence 
which the same quality gave to Charles Stewart Parnell 
over his Irish colleagues. 

What Louis seems wholly to have lacked was imagi- 
nation, that quality which is at the root of most virtues 
and all successful statesmanship — the power of putting 
himself in the place of others and realising how they 
would think and feel. Without it no autocrat, however 
excellent his intentions, can fail to do harm. No sense 
of duty, however high, no principles, however tenacious, 
can take its place. Indeed it is the unimaginative, high- 
principled men who are responsible for the worst cruelties 
in history. With such there is no room for the fits of 
good-natured pity which temper the indifference of a 
Charles II or a Regent of Orleans ; the consciousness of 
a high purpose and the conviction that they are in the 
right blind them to realities and keep them steadily in 
the wrong ; and Louis was never so dangerous to his 
country as when his political desire for uniformity was 
fortified by a new-found zeal for the true faith and a 
burning desire to atone for the follies of his youth by 
som-e signal service to religion. 



LOUIS XIV 129 

And yet, although with his natural limitations Louis 
could probably never have been a great king, he might 
have been a good one. All depended on his early educa- 
tion. Out of his strong animal passions, which after all 
are at the root of character, his vigorous will and his 
instinctive love of justice, a Fenelon might have moulded 
a ruler whose memory would have been more dear to 
France even than that of Henri IV. Unfortunately there 
was no Fenelon to guide, to encourage, and to control, the 
child who was destined to hold the sceptre of France for 
more than fifty years. His education was 7iil, and the 
crime was Mazarin's. 

At the death of his father in 1643, when Louis 
was five years old, his mother, Anne of Austria, became 
regent, but the real power passed into the hands of 
Cardinal Mazarin, who was determined to keep it there. 
* Is it surprising,' wrote Madame in 1716, ' that the King 
and Monsieur his brother were so badly educated? 
Cardinal Mazarin was determined to govern ; if he had 
educated the two princes, they would have had no need 
of him and he would have ceased to dominate. That 
was what he wished to prevent, expecting to live longer 
than he actually did. The queen-mother approved of all 
the cardinal did, and wished him always to remain at the 
head of everything. It is a marvel that the king was no 
worse than he was.' 

Mazarin had given orders that the young king was 
not to be * trop instruit,' and as he had appointed himself 
surintendant de V education, a new post with a handsome 
salary attached to it, he was able to make sure that his 
wishes were carried out. Louis was taught a modicum of 
French history and a smattering of geography, mathematics, 
and Latin, the last-named subject being an indispensable 
part of a statesman's education, as the Emperor of Austria 
and the Pope of Eome still wrote all their despatches in 

K 



130 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

that tongue. But he learned nothing thoroughly, and the 
boy's natural disposition seconded the cardinal's views. 
For Louis was not a rapid learner, had a marked aversion 
from study, and would frequently escape from the tedium 
of the school-room to the private apartments of his mother ; 
and Anne of Austria, though devoted to her son, was too 
ignorant herself to realise the value of knowledge, and 
made no attempt to send back the truant to the uncon- 
genial task or to punish his idleness. 

From very early times Louis suffered from the pre- 
occupations of his mother and the remissness of his 
governess, Mme. de Senegay, who doubled the post of 
gouvernante with that of daine d'honneur to the regent. 
Madame de Maintenon, who was an authority on educa- 
tion, used often to talk to the king about these early 
years. 'The King always surprises me,' she told her 
ladies at Saint-Cyr, ' when he talks of his education. His 
governesses, he says, played all day long and left him in 
the hands of their waiting- women. . . . He ate anything 
he could lay his hands on. If an omelette were being fried, 
he would clutch some pieces of it, and he and Monsieur 
his brother would devour their plunder in a corner. He 
was often tended by a peasant woman, and his ordinary com- 
panion was a little girl, the daughter of one of the waiting- 
women of the Queen's waiting- women. He used to call her 

* la reine Marie ' in their games, and always made her take 
the part of queen, while he acted as her page or foot- 
man, pushed her about in a chair, carried her train, or 
held a torch in front of her ' — a strange beginning for a 
monarch who was afterwards to be known as the proudest 
and most dignified in Europe. 

Nor did the thrifty Mazarin allow him to be spoiled 
by luxury, if the testimony of La Porte, his valet de 
chambre, is to be believed. *It is customary,' he says, 

• for the king to have twelve pairs of sheets a year, and 



LOUIS XIV 131 

two dressing-gowns, one for summer and one for winter ; 
nevertheless I have seen him obhged to do with six pairs 
of sheets for three whole years, and one dressing-gown 
of green velvet lined with miniver for the same time, so 
that at last it only reached half way down his legs. As 
for the sheets, they were so worn that several times I 
have found his legs thrust through them and resting on 
the bare mattress.' 

But, if the boy was kept short of sheets and not 
encouraged to pursue useful studies, there was no lack 
of appeals to his vanity. One of the first copies that he 
was set to write consisted of the phrase, 'Homage is 
due to kings : they do what they like.' But perhaps 
the most pernicious influence of all was the ' Royal 
Catechism,' a book composed by Godeau, Bishop of 
Vence, for the use of Louis. It took the form of an 
imaginary dialogue between Villeroy, the gouverneur of 
the young king, and his royal pupil. Such sentiments 
as ' You are the handsomest child in the world. . . . 
You are the visible and authentic image of God. Your 
Majesty should always remember that you are a Vice- 
God,' were not calculated to teach modesty. But the 
work contained still more dangerous ideas. Speaking of 
Protestantism the bishop dwells on the political con- 
sequences of schism. 

' How fatal has been the so-called Reformation ! ' he 
says. * Whoever introduces schism into Faith introduces 
it also into the loyalty which is due to the king. . . . 
Since there is a connection between the laws of the State 
and Divine law, whoever disturbs the one disturbs the 
other, and is equally guilty of lese-majeste ; consequently 
he deserves to be punished. Religion teaches subjects 
to reverence the king without having seen him, just 
as they worship God without seeing Him. Therefore, 
royalty has an interest in supporting the Papal See, the 

K 2 



132 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

cardinals, and ecclesiastics, who are the depositories and 
ministers of this doctrine.' 

And here are some of the earliest lessons he received 
on war from the same source : — 

' The great and shining qualities which we see in all 
conquerors give them a claim on our esteem, although 
they make the world a desert. Wars are storms which 
serve to purge the earth, as tempests purge the air. 
Conquerors who depopulate the world are ministers of 
God. Widespread desolations, being periodic and fatal, 
have their reason and necessity ; and, if they meet us on 
their path, let us bow gratefully to the immutable decrees 
that order the world. Resistance and affliction of spirit 
are a secret murmur against Providence.' ^ 

Mazarin after a while suppressed the book, but the 
seed had fallen on congenial soil and at the most im- 
pressionable age, between ten and eleven ; and, when we 
think of the Eevocation of the Edict of Nantes and the 
many wars that marked the reign, we can hardly doubt 
that it bore fruit. 

The boy's religious education was carefully super- 
intended by his mother and was of the orthodox Spanish 
type. Anne d'Autriche was a great frequenter of churches, 
but of the spirit of the Gospels she knew but little. Not 
that she was a bad woman. Her affection for her son 
was sincere and, in spite of misunderstandings, was re- 
turned till death removed her from the scene. But she 
was stupid, and her righteousness was little in advance 
of that of the Scribes and Pharisees. 

Every morning when he rose from bed Louis repeated 
the ' Office of the Holy Spirit ' and told his beads. Then 

' Godeau, in spite of his sanguinary theories, seems to have been a man 
of gentle character and habits. The contrast need not surprise us, for in 
all ages the most humane of men have at times been carried away by a 
sudden enthusiasm for war. 



LOUIS XIV 133 

Perefixe, his tutor, entered, and the day's work began 
with the reading of some passage from Scripture. He 
learned to submit patiently to all the forms and cere- 
monies of religion which the Church enjoined, and these 
early habits never deserted him. * Even in his wildest 
days,' as he naively confided to the Grande Mademoiselle, 
* he always found religion a great help to him.' Unfor- 
tunately, his spiritual growth was arrested in its most 
primitive stage, and to the end of his days faith meant 
to him chiefly a punctilious observance of forms, a hatred 
of the Huguenots, and an almost greater horror of 
Jansenism. By the splendid effort of will, by which he 
freed himself from the sins of the flesh, he saved his own 
soul alive ; but France had to pay a heavy price for the 
unenlightened piety of Anne of Austria. 

At eight he was a remarkably handsome child, as he 
was afterwards a remarkably handsome man, well formed, 
' with regular features, eyes gentle and at the same time 
serious, a clear, fair complexion, and fair hair.' ^ His 
favourite game was that of war, his favourite toy a box 
of soldiers. In the grounds of the Palais-Eoyal they had 
built for him a small model of a fort, which he alternately 
attacked and defended, and that with such energy that he 
often came into the palace drenched with perspiration. 

He already held decided views on some of the attri- 
butes of royalty. During a journey to Amiens, taken 
when he was nine years old, he was distributing as 
largesse some money that he had won at cards the night 
before. Villeroy, his gouv^irneur, tried to moderate his 
generosity, and told him to give a certain soldier only 
half a pistole. * For the soldier or for you that would be 
enough,' said the boy, ' but not for me. He must have 
the whole pistole.' The child was in this respect father 
of the man, and the lavish gifts of his later years were the 
' Mme. de Motteville ; in later yeard he became very dark. 



134 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

natural sequel of ideas that were allowed to grow un- 
checked. If someone had impressed upon him, while he 
was still capable of learning, that a generosity which was 
paid for ultimately by the peasant was not a very noble 
quality, he might at least have avoided the worst ex- 
travagances of his reign. But such unpalatable truths 
were seldom spoken to princes, and never to Louis XIV. 
The marvel is, as Madame justly wrote, that he was not 
wholly spoiled, for his upbringing was of the kind that 
might well have produced another Nero ; and Louis XIV 
must have been exceptionally endowed by nature to have 
saved from this enervating childhood so many of the 
qualities that command respect. He had a tutor who 
never contradicted and often flattered ; a mother who 
seldom allowed him to be punished and always took his 
side, right or wrong, in any disputes he had with his 
brother ; no young companions of his own age (thanks 
to the parsimony of Mazarin) to chaff or criticise or give 
him a standard of comparison, and instead the frequent 
society of women who petted and flattered. On one 
subject only his mother was inflexible, and that was re- 
ligion. Louis was locked up in solitary confinement for 
two whole days for swearing. He took the lesson to 
heart, and though in after years his Court was not always 
conspicuous for its morality, bad language was tabooed. 

This desultory education was still further hampered, 
as Louis neared manhood, by the wars of the Fronde, 
which left the young king bitter memories and imbued 
him with the idea that all resistance to royal authority 
savoured of rebellion. The result of it all was that, 
at twenty-two, Louis was perhaps more fundamentally 
ignorant than any of his contemporaries at Court. Accom- 
plishments indeed he had. He could speak Italian — the 
only language, other than his own, which he ever knew 
at all accurately ; he could ride, fence, dance, and play 



Locjis XIV 135 

tennis or mail, better than anyone else in his kingdom. 
He was fond, too, of music, and, though he never knew 
a note, he had an accurate ear and could hum correctly 
an air that he had heard only once. Saint-Simon records, 
as an instance of his excessive vanity, that he would often 
in the days of his glory sing aloud, and in public, passages 
from opera which were full of extravagant praise of him- 
self. Madame de Maintenon, no doubt more truly, states 
that he was so taken with tunes that he paid little atten- 
tion to the words and would sing his favourite airs in 
blissful forgetfulness of their context. In his youth he 
performed on the guitar, and music was one of the few 
solaces of his sad old age. 

If the frequent society of women tended to foster his 
vanity, it also helped to form the polished manners which 
distinguished him through life. * Nobody,' says Saint- 
Simon, * was ever more naturally and charmingly polite. 
He never passed a petticoat without lifting his hat, even 
though the wearer was a femme de chambre and he knew 
her for such ; as often happened at Marly.' It was in the 
company, too, of Mazarin's nieces that he acquired the 
turn of speech which lends a dignity and weight to 
trifles. ' The King,' to quote Saint-Simon again, * talked 
well, in appropriate terms, and with discrimination. 
Nobody could tell a story better than he, and his most 
commonplace remarks were never devoid of a certain 
natural dignity.' But he was not a great talker, and his 
silence, especially in his youth, was wrongly ascribed to 
shyness. 

But though he could ride, play the guitar, and direct 
a ballet, of solid knowledge Louis possessed little or 
nothing. * He had scarcely learned,' says Saint-Simon, 
not without exaggeration, ' to read and to write, and he 
remained so ignorant that the commonplaces of history, 
genealogies, law, &c., remained a sealed letter to him, 



136 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

and his ignorance sometimes led him, even in public, 
into making the most absm-d mistakes.' As, with the 
advent of manhood, he w&s thrown more into the society 
of young men of his own age, he became conscious of his 
ignorance and ashamed of it. 

In his Memoirs, addressed to his son, he says : — 

' When one is a child, one considers learning a pure 
vexation; when one begins to transact state-business, 
one regards it as a worthless trifle ; but when the reason 
begins to ripen, one recognises its importance, and one 
feels a keen regret at not knowing the things which 
everybody else knows. One learns, too late, how impor- 
tant it was to apply oneself while one had full leisure.' 

To Paris, and to most of the Court who knew of his idle 
habits but had not gauged the character that lay beneath 
them, he was a gay and gallant prince, whose interests 
did not rise above the chase and the ballet, and who 
would always leave the business of government in the 
hands of his ministers — the very type of the pleasure- 
loving, do-nothing king. A few people indeed had seen 
with clearer eyes. Mme. de Motteville had early noted 
that ' he was wise enough to speak little for fear of 
speaking foolishly,' and Mazarin had said, * You will see, 
he has the stuff of four kings in him.' 

Nevertheless, when, on the death of the cardinal in 
March 1661, Louis XIV announced his intention of 
being his own prime minister, scarcely anybody took him 
seriously. But this was not the only occasion in his life 
on which the king's habitual reserve misled his contem- 
poraries. If he had said little he had thought much, and 
his determination to rule as well as to reign was no 
sudden whim, but the result of long and deliberate pur- 
pose. On the day of Mazarin's death he shut himself up 
alone for two hours and drew up the routine which was 
to serve him for the rest of his life. Six to eight hours 



LOUIS XIV 137 

of solid work a day, exclusive of court ceremonies which 
were often more fatiguing than actual brain-work, was 
the task which he set himself, and which he performed 
daily and without a holiday for more than fifty years. 

In times of difficulty and crisis these six or eight 
hours often became ten or twelve. If Louis XIV was 
bent on dazzling the world, he was prepared to pay for 
glory with his own person. It needed a dauntless reso- 
lution and an iron will, suddenly to convert an existence 
which had been one long holiday into a life of laborious 
activity ; but, though absolute monarchy meant drudgery 
for the monarch, Louis was content to pay the price. 
He did, no doubt, regard it as a sacred duty. 

For his conception of monarchy was in a much truer 
sense his religion than the creeds which he repeated 
without understanding them. He had frankly accepted 
the theory that he was the 'visible image of God on 
earth.' However fatuous such an idea may appear to us 
now, it had at least its ennobling side, ' How angry I 
should be with you,' he replied one day to the imperti- 
nences of Lauzun, ' if I were not king ' : for the vicar of 
God must be superior to the petty weaknesses which are 
pardonable in a private individual. Accordingly Louis 
did exercise a wonderful control over his feelings, his 
passions, and his griefs. Even when most angry, he 
spoke with dignity and moderation, and seldom said the 
things that wound. Unfortunately, he did not weave 
into this conception of monarchy any idea of responsi- 
bility to his subjects. ' He who has given men kings,' he 
says in his Memoirs, 'has willed that they should be 
respected as His lieutenants, and reserves for Himself 
alone the right of judging their conduct. His will is that 
whoever is born a subject should obey blindly.' In fact, 
Louis regarded his kingdom very much as a man with a 
passion for horticulture regards his garden. Such a man 



138 THE GREA.T DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

feels it incumbent on him to make the most of the ground. 
Unsightly weeds or barren places are a reproach to him ; 
but he does not feel responsible to the flowers, and has no 
compunction in rooting up a specimen that is growing in 
a faulty way or in a place other than the one intended 
for it. 

Add to this that Louis believed himself to be inspired. 
' Listen to advice, consult your Ministers, but decide 
for yourself ' : he wrote to his grandson Philippe V of 
Spain. ' God who has made you king, will give you the 
necessary wisdom, provided your intentions are good.' 
This was the faith which inspired Louis XIV and gave 
him strength to change the currents of his life. God 
had made him king, and, so long as he earned it by good 
intentions and continual application, divine inspiration 
would not fail him. It was a simple faith; and, in a 
way, one cannot but respect it. If it was the secret of 
his failure as a king, it was also the key to his best 
endeavours as a man. 

Not content with the Herculean task of governing his 
kingdom himself, Louis attempted another and almost 
equally difficult feat. He decided to begin his education 
afresh. 

' I determined,' he writes in his Memoirs, ' to take out 
of my leisure time the hours necessary for this study. 
... I saw that it was important for my reputation, con- 
sidering the place I occupied in the world, that I should 
not be ignorant of the things with which a decent man 
ought to be familiar ; that it was almost a disgrace to 
have to resume this study so late, but that it was better 
to learn late than to be ignorant for ever of what one 
ought to know. I determined to assign certain fixed 
hours to this new pursuit, as I might have done to some 
important business of state.' 

It required some moral courage to go to school again 



LOUIS XIV 139 

at the age of twenty-three, especially as learning, at that 
epoch, was so intimately connected with the rod that it 
had in most minds humiliating associations. Louis was 
conscious of the ridicule which his action was sure to 
provoke. 

* The one scruple which embarrassed me was that, 
seeing the consideration I enjoyed in the world, I should 
feel some shame in returning to an occupation which I 
ought to have completed long before.' 

But it is difficult to master the rudiments of any 
branch of knowledge when the habit of learning has not 
been acquired in childhood, and Louis' efforts were not 
crowned with success. After a time his slow progress 
and the pressure of public affairs compelled him to give 
up the task as hopeless, and, to the end of his days, he 
would sometimes remark sadly, ' Je suis ignorant.'' 

The advent of autocracy was destined to have far- 
reaching and, in the end, ruinous consequences for 
France ; but in his determination to be his own master 
the young king had the great body of public opinion 
behind him. There was, it is true, a party among the 
bourgeoisie that still regretted the ancient liberty of its 
parliaments, but the mass of the nation was weary of 
the struggles of the Fronde and desired nothing better 
than a strong central government, that would keep the 
Condes and the other great families under control and 
save the country from the scourge of roving armies. 
The French too, till the days of the Eevolution, always 
had a touching belief in their kings ; and it took a 
Louis XV to destroy their faith in the innate virtue and 
capacities of their rulers. 

The new regime had, moreover, at the outset, all the 
prestige of success. Colbert reformed the finances, the 
armies were paid and justice simplified ; and with that 
marvellous recuperative power which has more than once 



140 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

astonished the world, France responded to the change. 
Industry and commerce advanced by leaps and bounds, 
and, in 1668, orders were flowing into Paris from 
all parts of the world. The nation, conscious of its 
recovered health and growing strength, was loud in its 
expressions of gratitude and praise to the young monarch. 
The very unexpectedness of his achievements added to 
their value, and the sudden metamorphosis of the timid 
pleasure-loving j^outh into the hard-working confident 
ruler seemed little short of a miracle. An attractive 
exterior helped to enhance his popularity. ' He had,' 
says Saint-Simon, ' the figure of a hero, and his whole 
person was naturally endowed with the most imposing 
majesty. He was admirably proportioned, a very model 
for painters and sculptors, with a perfect face and the 
most dignified expression and bearing that a man has 
ever had.' To this we must add a charm of manner, 
which, when he chose to exert it, he could exercise with 
irresistible effect. ' It is true,' wrote Madame in 1709, 
' that when our king wishes to be affable nobody in the 
world can be so attractive. There is a complete absence 
of constraint in his behaviour, and he has so much natural 
courtesy and such a charm in his voice and manner of 
speaking that one falls in love with him at once.' 

The whole nation felt the charm, and praise of the 
young king became the favourite topic of orators and 
poets. Sincere at first, it soon degenerated into senseless 
flattery; his most trivial actions became v»'orth record- 
ing, and his pleasures a merit. ' This week,' says the 
Official Gazette of April 7, 1663, ' the king enjoyed a 
walk at Saint-Germain-en-Laye and at Versailles, as some 
relaxation from his continuous efforts for the establish- 
ment of the happiness of his subjects.' ^ Classical my- 
thology was ransacked by ingenious organisers of public 
' Arvede Bariue. Louis XIV et la Grande Mademois lie. 



LOUIS XIV 141 

shows in order to give point to their extravagances. 
When, in 1662, the king went to take possession of 
Dunkerque, which he had purchased from Charles II of 
England, • Neptune lowered his trident, and the genii of 
land and water prostrated themselves before the mighty 
prince.' At court fetes he was Apollo, the presiding 
deity of the new Olympus, ' le roi soleil,' who figures so 
often in the frescoes and fountains of Versailles. In 
Moliere's ' Les Amants magiiifiques,' when Apollo enters, 
the chorus sings : 

Quelle grace extreme ! 
Quel port glorieux ! 
Oii voit-on des dieux 
Qui soient faits de meme ? 

And the apotheosis did not stop at Olympus. A thesis 
in which the king had been boldly compared with the 
Almighty was, through Bossuet's influence, suppressed 
by the Sorbonne in 1685 ; but Bossuet himself did not 
scruple to cry from the royal pulpit, ' Oh gods of dust 
and clay, you will die like men. Nevertheless, you are 
gods, even though you die ! ' ^ 

It is the fate of all monarchs to be flattered, but 
nobody ever swallowed flattery more greedily than Louis ; 
and the taste grew upon him with years. 'Look you,' 
said the Due de Gesvres to Saint-Simon : * in dealing 
with the king I have to make myself small, small, small ; 
like that,' he added, pointing to the ground with his 
hand, ' in order that I may become bigger afterwards.' 
'The king liked to be feared,' says Saint-Simon. 'When 
timid people who had to speak to him became confused 
and lost the thread of what they were saying, nothing 
pleased him better or so effectually served their cause.' 
He accepted the most extravagant acts of homage with a 

' Arv^e Barine. Louis XIV et la Orande Mademoiselle. 



142 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

satisfaction that was more than mere complaisance. In 
1707, on his way to Fontainebleau, he slept the night 
at Petit-Bourg, the seat of the Due d'Antin. D' An tin 
showed him over the estate and ' everything was admired 
except an avenue of chestnuts, which was the glory of the 
gardens but shut out the view from the king's windows. 
D'Antin said never a word, but, the next morning, when 
the king looked out of window, he saw the finest view in 
the world, and not a single trace of the former avenue. 
There had been no noise and no excitement. The trees 
had simply disappeared as if by magic, and the ground 
had been levelled. The king was highly pleased.' ^ 

At a much earlier period of his life he had enjoyed an 
equally gross piece of flattery. * He had had occasion to 
write to the Due de Montbazon, governor of Paris, and 
had sent the letter by a footman. M. de Montbazon was 
on the point of sitting down to table when the messenger 
arrived. He read the letter and wrote a reply, which he 
handed to the footman. The servant bowed and was 
about to withdraw. " No," said the duke, " you have come 
from the king and you must do me the honour of dining 
with me." There was a large company present, and the 
servant was not a little confused ; but the duke would 
take no refusal, made him sit down and helped him first. 
Dinner ended, he escorted his guest to the steps and did 
not leave him till he had seen him mount his horse. 
The king used often to relate this story, and seldom failed 
to add, " That is what I call savoir vivre." ' 

One thing only could have saved Louis from this 
childish vanity, a sense of humour ; and humour was a 
quality which he conspicuously lacked. It is true that in 
his early manhood he protected Moliere, but it may be 
doubted whether in his heart of hearts he did not admire 
Moliere the flatterer more than Moliere the satirist. 

Saint-Simon. 



LOUIS XIV 143 

Moreover, it is possible for a man to enjoy satire without 
having a very profound sense of the ridiculous. Louis 
could laugh at a practical joke, but he had no real appre- 
ciation of fun or chaff, no power of being amused at 
himself; and he was never comfortable in the presence of 
Madame de Caylus, Madame de Maintenon's witty cousin, 
simply because he suspected her of laughing at him. On 
the rare occasions on which he attempted to be facetious, 
he only succeeded in being gauche or boorish, as when he 
put hairs in the butter of Madame de Montespan and her 
sister Madame de Thianges, both of whom were rather 
dainty and squeamish about their food. 

But, though he liked his flattery 'laid on with a 
trowel,' there were a few people from whom he would 
take the plain unvarnished truth, and whom he respected 
for their frankness ; and there were times when a blunt 
answer was more effective than the subtlest adulation. 
To the numerous applicants who waylaid him with 
petitions he was in the habit of replying, ' Je verrai ' 
(I will see about it). A Gascon officer who had lost an 
arm in the king's service, but who, being a Protestant, 
had found insuperable difficulties in the way of a pension, 
as a last resource approached the king in person. ' Je 
verrai,' replied the king, and was about to pass on. ' But, 
sire,' said the officer, ' if I had said " Je verrai " to my 
general when he sent me to the battery where I lost my 
arm, I should still possess it and should not be asking you 
for anything.' The king, struck by the justice of the 
answer, granted the pension on the spot. As Madame said, 
the king was naturally bon et juste — if only you could get 
at him. 

In 1660, the year before Mazarin's death, Louis had 
married. On bended knees he had implored his mother 
and the cardinal that Marie Mancini might become his 
wife. But, fortunately for France, Mazarin feared the 



144 THE GEE AT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

influence of his clever and impetuous niece. Strong in 
the support of the queen-mother, he offered an uncom- 
promising resistance to the infatuation of the young king. 
Marie was exiled to Brouage, and Louis was reminded 
that a monarch's affections must wait on policy. The 
bride selected for him was Marie-Therese, daughter of 
Philip IV, king of Spain, The wedding was a long and 
difficult business, as it was impossible for a king of Spain 
to give away his daughter on French soil, and equally 
impossible for a king of France to fetch his bride from 
Spanish territory. Fortunately the He des Faisans lay 
exactly on the border-line between the two countries ; 
half of it was in France and half in Spain. A pavilion 
was erected in the centre, and the two kings entered it 
from opposite doors. Louis advanced on a red carpet of 
French manufacture ; Philip walked, step for step, on a 
Spanish carpet of silver and gold : and the two monarchs 
embraced each other over the frontier. 

On June 3 Louis was married by proxy in the church 
of Fontarabia ; on the 6th the official ceremony took 
place on the He des Faisans ; on the 7th Anne of Austria 
conducted her daughter-in-law on to French soil ; and on 
the 9th the happy pair were married for the third and 
last time at St.-Jean de Luz, and were at length allowed 
to speak to each other ; for up to this point they had never 
exchanged a single word. 

Marie-Therese had grown up in the belief that she 
would one day be queen of France, and Louis had been 
the ' Prince Charming ' of her girlish dreams. The 9th 
of June saw the realisation of her hopes ; the rest of her 
life was a long disillusionment. It is impossible not to sym- 
pathise with the tragedy of this unhappy queen, the most 
harmless and the most insignificant of all the characters 
who have played a part on the royal stage. And yet, if 
any excuse is to be made for the infidelity of Louis, it is 



LOUIS XIV 145 

to be found in the person and character of his wife. 
Short, undistinguished, with fair hair, round eyes, the 
Austrian Hp, a heavy chin, and fat hanging cheeks, she 
looks what she really was — inoffensive and stupid. Not 
even the court painters could invest her with any halo of 
dignity or make her appear more distinguished than a 
kitchenmaid dressed up as a queen. And her mind matched 
her face. She never even mastered French. 'Our dear 
queen,' wrote Madame in 1709, ' used to speak a strange 
kind of French. To begin with, her "u's" were all 
"ou's." Besides, she used to say " servillietta " for 
" serviette," " Sancta Biergen " for " Sainte Vierge," 
" des eschevois " for "des chevaux," and so on.' She 
possessed no conversation, nor any of the arts that might 
have fixed the affections of a husband accustomed to the 
sprightly and clever society of Mazarin's nieces ; and she 
was too nervous even to perform her official duties as 
queen with credit. Louis, after the death of his mother, 
had tried to accustom her to hold a cercle, a solemn gather- 
ing of "great ladies over which the queen presided ; but 
after a few dismal failures the attempt was abandoned. 

Her temper, too, was that of a fretful child. If the 
king took her with him on his journeys, she was dis- 
contented and grumbled ; if he left her behind she wept 
floods of tears ; if he were dissatisfied with his dinner, she 
was unhappy ; if he liked it, she was miserable for fear it 
should all be eaten up and nothing left for her. She was 
gentle, chaste, and religious ; but Madame de Maintenon, 
who was a martinet on the subject of religion, admitted 
that her piety was more suited to a Carmelite nun than to 
a queen. The tragedy of the situation was that, to the 
end of her days, poor Marie-Therese was in love with her 
truant husband and suffered cruelly from his many and 
open infidelities. To the end of her days, too, she was 
afraid of him, and a summons to appear before him 

L 



146 THE GEEAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

reduced her to such a pitiable state of nervousness that 
she found herself tongue-tied in his presence ; sometimes 
she had to be literally pushed into the room, trembling 
like a jelly. 

On November 1, 1661, the Dauphin was born, the 
only one of Marie-Therese's six children who lived beyond 
infancy. His birth, which was hailed throughout France 
with transports of joy, nearly cost the mother's life. 
Louis, who had confessed and communicated, was present 
during the prolonged and trying ordeal. He was easily 
moved to tears, and exhibited on this occasion a becoming 
anxiety and sympathy. But the people who weep most 
easily are not always those who feel most deeply. 

Within a year of his marriage Louis had begun that 
series of adulteries which shocked the better minds of 
France and dealt a blow at morality which the repentance 
of his later years was powerless to heal. It was almost 
inevitable that a man whose daily life was so public and 
so trammelled by court etiquette should sometimes have 
a craving for private companionship and feel the need of 
a confidant. Louis, together with his taste for public 
representation and display, had a domestic side to his 
character, which unfortunately could not find its satisfac- 
tion in the company of Marie-Therese. He was not 
drawn to the society of men, and, except for de la Koche- 
foucauld, he never had a real male friend in his life. By 
nature and upbringing he was one of those to whom life 
is incomplete without the society of the other sex. 

Had Louis been faithful to his first love, it would have 
been possible, if not to pardon, at least to understand. 
But, when once he had broken through the bounds of 
modesty, he threw away all restraint, and his relations 
with his mistresses and his lawful wife came as near to 
the Oriental conception of polygamy as anything that has 
been seen in a Western Court, a fact which is certainly 



LOUIS XIV 147 

startling in a king who regarded himself as a defender of 
the Christian faith and who only once in his life missed 
hearing daily Mass. 

Mile, de la Valliere, the first and most charming of 
his illicit wives, was as disinterested as she was beauti- 
ful ; and it may at least be said of her that love and not 
ambition wrought her undoing. Though her affection 
proved stronger than her scruples, she was never really 
happy in her false position ; nor did she use her influence 
either to aggrandise herself or to humiliate her enemies. 

The king for a time loved her passionately. But he 
was not allowed to enter on the primrose path without 
a struggle. The Gahale des Devots, a secret society of 
which mention has already been made, fought for his soul 
with more zeal than discretion. But to a final appeal 
made to him by his mother Louis replied, with tears, that 
he knew he was doing wrong; that he sometimes felt 
grieved and ashamed ; that he had done all he could not 
to offend God, and not to abandon himself to his passions ; 
but that they had become stronger than his reason ; that 
he could no longer resist them, and did not even feel a 
desire to do so. To the jealous and tearful reproaches of 
his wife he replied cynically that he hoped at thirty to be 
a better husband. 

The fetes of the 'lie Enchantee' at Versailles, in the 
May of 1664, were the official consecration of these illegal 
bonds. They lasted for six days. The queen and the 
queen-mother were present, and the king entertained six 
hundred guests. If there had been any doubt as to the 
significance of the celebrations, the ' Princesse d'Elide,' 
composed by Moliere for the occasion, would have resolved 

them. 

Dans I'age ou Ton est aimable 

Rien n'est si beau que d'aimer. 
Soupirez librement pour un amant fidele 
Et bravez ceux qui voudraient vous blamer. 

L 2 



148 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

The lover was not faithful, but neither Moliere nor 
Mile, de la Valliere could foresee that at the time. 

The one counter-attraction which could at times draw 
the young king away from the pleasures of love was the 
pursuit of glory. Louis was no coward, but he earned 
the laurels of a hero rather cheaply. He never took part 
in a decisive battle, nor can he be credited with planning 
any successful campaign. He had a head for detail but 
not for large designs, and, though he would have been a 
good regimental officer, he would have failed as a general. 
As it was, his military achievements consisted mostly in 
finishing sieges that were on the verge of completion. 
He was usually accompanied into the field by his wife 
and mistresses, and these royal progresses were the despair 
of the generals in command ; but, as the king never 
guessed their secret thoughts and they for their part 
were careful not to betray them, he used to return well 
satisfied from his royal campaigns. Perhaps he was 
almost fonder of the great reviews, which he occasionally 
held in time of peace, than of the pageant of actual war. 
At a time when transport was difficult and troops were 
expected to live on the inhabitants, a great army would 
be concentrated somewhere in the neighbourhood of 
Paris ; and, as there was no enemy to interfere with gala 
arrangements, the king was able to display unhindered 
his graceful horsemanship and military skill before the 
eyes of admiring ladies. It was in vain that Colbert 
remonstrated, pointing out that this mimic warfare was 
almost as costly as a hard-fought campaign, and even 
hinting that there was something ridiculous in war before 
women. The king read his remonstrances but ignored 
them. It was the minister's metier to grumble. 

At the beginning of 1666 Anne of Austria died of 
cancer, after seven months of cruel suffering aggravated 
by the incompetence of her doctors. Louis, in spite of 



LOUIS XIV 149 

occasional quarrels, had been really fond of his mother 
and was at first overwhelmed by his loss ; but he had 
a great gift for forgetting, and the shock, which nearly 
reduced him to unconsciousness for a moment, did not 
alter the course of his life. The death of the queen- 
mother removed one of the few restraining influences at 
Court and let loose the ambitions that aimed at the young 
king's heart. In the face of this keen competition 
Mile, de la Valliere's ascendency did not last long. She 
had nothing but her beauty and her gentleness to recom- 
mend her, and Louis liked the society of clever ladies. 
In 1667 she was definitely supplanted by Madame de 
Montespan. Though cruelly wounded in her affections, 
she hardly struggled against her successful rival. For a 
brief space she endured at Court the humiliating position 
of an abandoned sultana, and the armies of France saw 
the strange spectacle of the queen, de la Valliere, and 
the Montespan, driving in the same carriage ; while the 
soldiers asked each other jestingly whether they had seen 
' the three queens.' Eventually she retired to a convent 
and expiated her faults by a life of austere penance. 

Madame de Montespan, wife of the marquis of that 
name, was a woman of a very different stamp. She was 
one of three sisters, nees Mortemart, who all possessed in 
a high degree the wit that was characteristic of their 
family, * a wit,' says Saint-Simon, ' of so subtle, original, 
and agreeable a turn, that it was sui generis. ' Madame 
de Montespan was the most beautiful of the three. She 
had a perfect complexion, but owed her powers of fascina- 
tion, not so much to the regularity of her features, as to 
an indefinable charm in which wit, liveliness, and phy- 
sical attraction were inseparably blended. Unfortunately 
her character did not correspond with her pleasing ex- 
terior. ' She was,' says Saint- Simon, ' spiteful, capricious, 
ill-tempered, and proud.' The queen suffered from her 



150 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

arrogant behaviour, very different from the attentions and 
respect she had always received from Mile, de la "Val- 
liere, and she was sometimes goaded into exclaiming, 
' This wench will be the death of me ! ' The king, too, 
had to endure her haughty and domineering temper, and 
she often made him scenes ' of which,' in Madame de 
Maintenon's words, ' he was not proud.' But for eight 
years her ascendency was complete and cost the unhappy 
taxpayer millions. The first rupture took place in 1675. 
Shortly before Easter, when all good Catholics (and 
Madame de Montespan counted herself as one) confessed 
and communicated, a simple priest, with a courage that 
was often lacking in his superiors, refused absolution to 
the favourite on the ground that she was leading an 
openly immoral life; and he was backed in his refusal 
by the cure of the parish. Madame de Montespan com- 
plained to the king, and priest and cure were dismissed. 
But Bossuet, bishop of Meaux, who had been appointed 
tutor to the Dauphin, took up their cause, and appealed 
to the king's conscience with such effect that, although 
there was no open breach, Louis and his mistress sepa- 
rated. For a few months the religious party at Court 
believed that the king was about to enter on the path of 
reform : but the separation did not last for long, and by 
the end of the year Madame de Montespan was reinstalled 
in the royal favour and to all appearance more powerful 
than ever ; for the following year Madame de Sevigne saw 
her at the royal card-tables at Versailles, 'with her head 
resting familiarly on her lover's shoulder, as if to say, 
" Je suis mieux que jamais. '' ' 

In reality the succeeding years were embittered by a 
continuous struggle. Louis' affection was growing cold, 
and he was w^eary of endless scenes and the violent and 
domineering temper of his mistress. Madame de Monte- 
span was intellectually his superior, and she was too 



LOUIS XIV 151 

little careful to conceal her knowledge of the fact ; more- 
over, she made the fatal mistake of trying to bully him 
into fidelity. Perhaps, although she did not know it, her 
strongest hold on him lay in his affection for their 
children. In 1675, by a formal Act, he had recognised 
his illegitimate offspring, including a daughter he had had 
by Mile, de la Valliere. 

Few of Louis' actions were more blamed by his 
contemporaries than the favour he showed to his bastards. 
No doubt his behaviour was impolitic : and the recogni- 
tion of this second family, side by side with his legitimate 
heirs, gave rise to jealousies, dissension, and intrigues, 
which could not fail to weaken the royal authority. No 
doubt, too, vanity entered into the motives which prompted 
him to exalt whatever was intimately connected with the 
royal person. But it would be unfair to deny that the 
action did him credit as a man. Polygamy always brings 
with it a curse ; but Louis XIV's ambition for his natural 
children was more human and more respectable than the 
cynical indifference of Louis XV to his illegitimate off- 
spring. Anyhow, the affection he felt for the children of 
Madame de Montespan may well have made him shrink 
from an open breach with the mother. Perhaps the 
Chambre ardente in 1680, and the connection then revealed 
between his mistress and La Voisin and hgr criminal world, 
removed his last scruples. It was probably not without 
intention that, in the May of the same year, as he stepped 
into his carriage at St. Germain, he complained to the 
queen, in the presence of Madame de Montespan, of the 
scents which the latter affected and which made him feel 
ill ; for it must be remembered that many of the deaths 
by poisoning were supposed to have been caused by scents. 
Still there was no open and irreparable quarrel : only 
when, in the previous year, Madame de Montespan had 
been made surintendante de la maison de la reine, the 



152 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

appointment was regarded both as the sign of her dis- 
missal and as the reward of past services. She took her 
defeat ill. From the Com't she finally passed to Clagny, 
the villa which Louis had built for her at Versailles 
at enormous cost, and from Clagny to a convent, where, 
haunted always by the fear of death, she endeavoured, 
like her predecessor, to make her peace with heaven. 

Before he was entirely off with the old love Louis XIV 
was on with the new. In 1679 he fell in love with Mile, 
de Fontanges, and her favour was made public. But the 
infatuation did not last long, and the sudden and peculiar 
death of the lady, in 1681, made any renewal of the intimacy 
impossible. Madame roundly accuses Madame de Mon- 
tespan of poisoning a successful rival, and the circum- 
stances were certainly suspicious ; but there were others 
besides the Montespan who were interested in the removal 
of a dangerous competitor. For the king's affections 
were known to be free, and there were many who were 
eager to fix them. Mme. de Soubise, Mme. du Lude, 
and others, enjoyed a passing favour; and everything 
pointed to a succession of scandals, similar to those which 
have made the latter years of Louis XV's life a byword, 
when the influence of Madame de Maintenon won its first 
conspicuous triumph and saved the king from a shameful 
old age. 

Louis XIV first made the acquaintance of this re- 
markable woman when, as Mme. Scarron, she was gover- 
ness to Madame de Montespan's children. Saint-Simon's 
story, that he took so strong a dislike to her as to press 
for her dismissal, is more piquant than probable ; but 
it is certain that some years elapsed before the ac- 
quaintance ripened into friendship. Mme. Scarron had 
belonged to the intellectual coterie satirised by Moliere in 
Les Femmes savantes, and Louis had expected to find in 
her a formidable blue-stocking. He was surprised and 



LOUIS XIV 153 

pleased to discover, instead, a clever but thoroughly sensi- 
ble and practical woman, v^ho was witty enough to hold 
her own with Madame de Montespan, but not too in- 
tellectually proud to stoop to the royal level. Their inter- 
course at first turned solely on the children who were in 
her charge. Then, in the quarrels between the king and 
his mistress, which yearly became more frequent and more 
acute, Mme. Scarron, as the mutual friend, became 
the confidante who was called in to listen to grievances 
and make the peace. The secret of her final ascendency 
is to be found in the fact that, in her company, Louis for 
the first time tasted the delights of real friendship. He had 
reached an age when, as a relaxation from his labours, he 
needed something more restful than the capricious moods 
of Madame de Montespan, or the tedious bustle of pageant 
and Gouit fetes. He had exhausted the violent emotions 
of youth and was ripe for a tranquil and reasoned friend- 
ship. But experience had given him a somewhat cynical 
idea of the other sex. He warns the Dauphin in his 
Memoirs to love wisely and not too well, and above all, 
not to allow the influence of women to extend beyond the 
hours of pleasure. ' They are eloquent in their expressions, 
urgent, in their entreaties, obstinate in their ideas, and 
incapable of keeping a secret ' — in a word, agreeable play- 
things but dangerous comrades. 

In Mme. Scarron he learned to value a type of 
woman with which he was unfamiliar. Intelligent, sym- 
pathetic, and absolutely discreet, she opened to him the 
gates of a new and unsuspected world. Above all, she 
was disinterested. He was accustomed to have his favour 
exploited ; if ever he felt personally drawn towards an 
individual, he expected to be made to pay for the in- 
dulgence of his feelings by pensions, donations, sine- 
cures ; but, except for the modest estate of Maintenon, 
which cost 200,000 francs (a trifle for a king who was 



154 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

accustomed to give in millions) and which enabled Mme. 
Scarron to assume a less plebeian name, his new friendship 
cost him nothing. Probably love, in the ordinary mean- 
ing of the word, did not enter into his feelings for this 
woman. Indeed, it was unlikely that it should do so ; 
for, at the time when they jSrst became really intimate, 
Madame de Maintenon was already forty years old. In 
1679, when her influence was beginning to be decisive, 
she was still the confidential friend who could be trusted 
to hold her tongue, and who was called in to put un- 
pleasant matters straight. * I remember,' she says, * that 
one day the king sent me to talk to Madame de Font- 
anges ; she was furious about some slight she had re- 
ceived ; the king was afraid of a scandal and had sent 
me to calm her. I was two hours with her, and spent 
the time in trying to persuade her to leave the king, and 
to convince her that this would be a noble and praise- 
worthy course of action. I remember that she replied 
impetuously, " Why, Madame, you talk of putting off an 
attachment as if it were the same thing as taking off a 
garment." ' 

In the early years of her acquaintance with the king, 
Madame de Maintenon's ambition did not soar beyond a 
modest competence and a quiet retreat in the country. 
The Court had no attractions for her, and its intrigues 
and follies disgusted. But, gradually, as she found her 
influence growing and her presence becoming indispens- 
able, she conceived the idea that it might not be beyond 
her powers to convert the king and wean him from the 
life of scandalous pleasure which was doing such grievous 
harm to morality and religion. Her talents were those of 
an ideal governess, patient, observant, tactfal, determined 
to win by persuasion and not by force, and gifted with the 
instinct which tells its possessor when a reproof will be 
effective and when it will only irritate. Louis, spoiled 



LOUIS XIV 155 

from his cradle and cut off from the realities of life, 
still had much of the child in his nature, and Madame 
de Maintenon read him as a child. She had the per- 
spicacity to see that, at the bottom of his character, and 
stronger and more permanent than his passions, was 
a feeling which, if it was sometimes little better than 
superstition, was nearly allied to religion. For many 
years, with a patience and perseverance that were undis- 
mayed by repeated checks, she set herself to cultivate the 
better side of the royal nature. Nor, when the occasion 
seemed propitious, did she shun plain speaking. * Sire,' 
she said to him one day, when they were together at a 
review, * what would you do, if you were told that one of 
these young officers was living publicly with the wife of 
another man, as if she were his own ? ' The king laughed 
and did not reply ; but no doubt the shaft went home. 

The increasing prestige of the governess was not likely to 
be pleasing to Madame de Montespan, who was too shrewd 
not to see in what direction this new influence was tending. 
The two women grew estranged, and Madame de Main- 
tenon's position, owing to the violent temper of her former 
friend, became a painful one. But, in 1680, the marriage of 
the Dauphin enabled the king to put an end to this distress- 
ing situation and at the same time to give a public mark of 
his favour. Madame de Maintenon was made dmne d'atour 
of the new Dauphine, one of the proudest positions at 
Court that a lady could hope to occupy. In September 
of the same year Madame de Sevigne recorded that the 
courtiers had christened her * Madame de Maintenant,' and 
that every evening from eight to ten she was closeted 
with the king. It is not surprising to find that, in the 
following year, Madame de Montespan, who hoped against 
hope to recover her hold over Louis, had les vapeurs. 

In the July of 1683 the queen died, after a few days' 
illness, at Versailles. In the spring of the same year she 



156 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

had followed the king in a triumphal progress through 
the new provinces of Franche-Comte and Alsace, and at 
her special request, Madame de Maintenon had been allowed 
to accompany her. Her affection for the new favourite 
is not difficult to explain. Madame de Maintenon had used 
her influence with the king to recall him to a sense of his 
duties towards the neglected wife. ' The queen died,' says 
Mme. de Caylus, ' at a time when the age and piety of 
the king were making her happy. He paid her atten- 
tions to which she was not accustomed ; he saw her more 
often and tried to amuse her ; and, as she attributed this 
happy change to Madame de Maintenon, she liked her and 
showed her all possible marks of esteem. I remember 
that she used even to do me the honour of petting me 
whenever I appeared before her.' Four days before her 
fatal illness, Marie-Therese had confided to Mme. de 
Vize that never in her life had she been so happy, ' for 
now she was perfectly satisfied and wanted nothing more 
in the world.' 

The king displayed a becoming sorrow : it is permis- 
sible to hope that remorse entered partlj'' into his grief ; 
but the Court was little affected by the queen's death. 
Worse people have left a greater gap behind them than 
poor harmless Marie-Therese. 

From the death-bed of his wife Louis withdrew to 
Fontainebleau. Madame de Maintenon was lodged in the 
queen's apartments, and the ministers worked with the 
king in her presence. An accident to Louis, who fell 
from his horse while hunting and broke an arm, threw the 
two friends together more than ever. A crisis had come 
in both their lives, and Madame de Maintenon's letters 
betray her agitation. Early in the following year, at 
midnight, they were married secretly at Versailles. Pere 
La Chaise officiated ; Harlay, Archbishop of Paris, the 
Marquis de Montchevreuil, and Louvois, were witnesses ; 



LOUIS XIV 157 

and Bontemps, premier valet of the king, served as 
acolyte. Louis was forty- five years old and Madame de 
Maintenon forty-eight. 

By his marriage Louis broke definitely with the past 
and performed the most creditable action of his life. In 
no other way could he have secured the permanent com- 
panionship of the woman who had become necessary to 
him ; for Madame de Maintenon was too high-principled, 
or, as her contemporaries would have said, too narrowly 
devote, to accept an ambiguous position or assume a role 
which lacked the sanction of religion. 

The marriage, universally suspected though never 
publicly announced, shocked the prejudices of the time, 
and perhaps of all times ; for monarchs too often regard 
it as their duty to sacrifice their truest interests as men 
to a mistaken conception of reasons of state. Nobody 
ever held more extravagant views on the dignity of king- 
ship than Louis XIV, and nobody had a greater horror 
of mesalliances. It is impossible to doubt that, in marry- 
ing the widow of the dramatist Scarron, the Grand 
Monarque consciously and deliberately sacrificed some of 
his dearest and most cherished principles. But the sacri- 
fice was not made in vain. If Madame de Maintenon's 
influence was sometimes prejudicial to the best interests 
of her country, if her religious views were narrow and her 
political outlook limited, she gave her husband the moral 
support which his scrupulous but sensual nature required ; 
and the remaining years of his reign were unstained by 
any of those sins which had marred his youth and nearly 
ruined his life. 



158 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 



CHAPTEE VI 

LOUIS XIV — (continued) 

The family circle — Revocation of the Edict of Nantes — His horror of 
Jansenism — Port-Royal des Champs — Jealous of his rights — Louvois 
and the sack of the Palatinate — His ministers — His selfishness — A 
stickler for etiquette — Loses his temper at Marly — Sufferings of the 
poor — A sad old age — His death. 

In the May of 1682 the Court had been transferred 
definitely to Versailles. Henceforth the Ministers and all 
the departments of State were quartered in the palace, and 
Louis had his nobility lodged, as it were, in his own house 
and permanently under his observation. One is tempted 
at first to feel surprise at the change which had come over 
the once independent spirit of the great families, and to 
wonder how they came to submit so tamely to the king's 
conception of their position. But it must be remembered 
that the wars of the Fronde had crushed their opposition, 
while the splendour of the new regime had dazzled them. 
Moreover (and most important of all) the lucrative charges 
and fat pensions were, under a highly centralised system 
of government, all in the royal gift. If the Condes and 
the Eohans and the Guises wanted their bread and butter, 
they had, whether they liked doing so or not, to earn it in 
the way that the king approved. 

Though he was continually in the public eye, Louis 
was less accessible than he imagined to any but those 
who had the private ejitrees or who were brought into 
personal contact with him by their official position. It is 







uj jiq 



O 2 ;§ 



uj Kq 



LOUIS XIV 159 

true that anybody who had a favour to ask might approach 
the king as he returned from Mass through the Galerie 
des Glaces to the private apartments ; but the pubhcity of 
the place, the dread of an open rebuff, and the impossi- 
bihty of speaking at any length (for the king did not stop, 
but merely motioned to his immediate followers to fall 
back for a few paces), rendered this privilege of little 
value. Private audiences were rarely granted, even to 
those who were employed on State business. The few 
who secured them generally came away content, * for 
there,' as Saint-Simon says from personal experience, * the 
king, however prejudiced he might be at the outset, 
listened patiently, kindly, and with an obvious desire to 
understand. One found in him a spirit of justice and a 
desire to know the truth, even though he was angry. 
There everything could be told, provided always that it 
was told with that air of respectful submission without 
which one only made matters worse ; but with it, provided 
one spoke the truth, one could interrupt the king, deny 
his assertions point blank, and raise one's voice above his 
in speaking. And not only was he not offended, but he 
would congratulate himself afterwards on having given 
the audience.' 

In the gardens the courtiers might follow the king 
without permission ; and for many years the gardens were 
his great delight and a walk in them his favourite recrea- 
tion. Saint-Simon, who was nothing if not critical, con- 
sidered them to be in ' bad taste.' ' One can only reach 
the freshness of the shade by crossing a vast and torrid 
zone, at the end of which one is obliged either to mount or 
to descend ; and, with the hill, which is very short, the 
gardens end. The shale burns your feet, but without it 
you would sink, here into sand, there into the blackest 
mud. The water for the fountains, collected in huge 
reservoirs from all the neighbourhood, is green, thick, and 



160 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

muddy ; and gives off a vapour which is unhealthy and per- 
ceptible, and a smell which is still more so. The effect of 
the fountains, which have, however, to be used sparingly, 
is incomparable ; but the result of it all is that one 
admires and runs away.' Saint-Simon, however, did not 
express the general opinion of his time, which considered 
the gardens to be the masterpiece of Le Notre ; and Louis, 
with pardonable pride, himself drew up an itinerary for 
the use of visitors, of which a copy, written in his own 
hand, exists in the National Library at Paris. 

' On leaving the palace by the vestibule of the Cour de 
Marbre you will step on to the terrace ; you must pause 
at the top of the steps to get a general idea of the situa- 
tion of the parterres, the fountains, and the cabinets 
d'eau.' 

And so through the Allee d'Eau, where fountains, placed 
on either side, shot up their water in such a way as to 
form a liquid vault overhead, the visitor is conducted to 
all the wonders of the place— the Latona, the Orangerie, 
the Girandole, the Mountain of water, the He royale, the 
Colonnade, and the Baths of Apollo ; he is invited to 
embark in a gondola and visit Trianon, or the Menagerie 
which faces it on the corresponding arm of the Canal ; till 
finally, ' after turning at the top of the terrace steps to 
view the Parterre du Nord, the statues, vases, the Pyramid, 
and all that can be seen of the Neptune, he will leave the 
garden by the gate through which he entered.' 

Madame de Maintenon, after her marriage, seldom 
appeared in public, and, when she did so, modestly 
assumed no higher place than that to which she was 
entitled as ' dame d'atour of the Dauphine.' But in the 
private apartments she presided as queen over the family 
circle, where Louis, cured of his excesses, now spent such 
leisure time as the cares of State allowed him. The task 
she had set herself was not an easy one ; the royal family, 



LOUIS XIV 161 

though outwardly united by a common fear of the king, 
was composed of imperious and discordant elements, and 
it needed all her tact to prevent dissensions from becom- 
ing acute, and to secure at least the semblance of harmony 
which was necessary for the king's peace. The daughters 
of Madame de Montespan inherited something of their 
mother's reckless and mordant tongue, and could only 
be kept in order by a firm hand. Fortunately Madame 
de Maintenon, though indulgent to the faults of youth, 
could speak sternly when occasion demanded, and a scold- 
ing from her was an ordeal which the young princesses 
dreaded almost more than a rebuke from the king. The 
elder of the two. Mile, de Nantes, afterwards Mme. la 
Duchesse, was pretty, clever, intriguing, and spiteful ; the 
younger, Mile, de Blois, who married the future Eegent, 
grew to be a handsome but rather idle woman. For the 
Princesse de Conti, his daughter by Mile, de la Valliere, 
Louis had less affection. She was radiantly beautiful till 
small-pox destroyed the freshness of her charm, without 
however disfiguring her ; and, in a Court that was critical 
of beauty, she still passed for one of the prettiest women 
of her day. She attached herself to her half-brother, the 
Grand Dauphin, and was more influential at Meudon than 
at Versailles. 

The Grand Dauphin himself did not add much to the 
gaiety of the family gatherings. Handsome, but ' splen- 
didly null,' he was never at his ease in the presence of his 
father and almost more afraid of Madame de Maintenon. 
The king, too, had little real affection for his son and heir, 
and Monseigneur was happier in his own chateau at 
Meudon, where he imitated on a smaller scale the parental 
vices, than in the royal cabinets of Versailles or Marly. 
The Dauphine, while she Hved, was generally ill, and bad 
health had soured her temper. Monsieur, the king's only 
brother, was much at St. Cloud ; but, when he joined the 



162 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

family party, his gossip, though wearisome in large doses, 
was amusing for a while and helped to keep the ball 
rolling. Madame, his wife, who loathed Madame de 
Maintenon, ' la pantocrate ' as she styled her, and who 
was incapable of concealing her dislikes, was tolerated at 
meals, but was no longer admitted to the privacy of the 
king's cabinet. 

The favourite, both of the king and of Madame de 
Maintenon, till the Duchesse de Bourgogne came to win 
their hearts, was the Due du Maine, the eldest surviving 
child of Louis and Madame de Montespan, who inherited his 
mother's cleverness without his mother's temper. Consti- 
tutionally feeble, he would probably have died in child- 
hood had it not been for the devoted care of his governess, 
to whom he always remained deeply attached. Saint- 
Simon and most of his contemporaries thought him sly, 
unscrupulous, and a hypocrite. Mme. de Staal, however, 
who had exceptional opportunities for judging, formed a 
different opinion. * He was,' she says, ' enlightened, clever, 
and well-read. Religion rather than Nature had endowed 
him with all the virtues. He loved order, respected jus- 
tice, and was always polite. His tastes inclined him to 
solitude, study, and reading. Well fitted to shine in 
society, he only lent himself to it reluctantly. His con- 
versation was solid, but at the same time lively and full of 
anecdote ; his manners nobly familiar and polished ; his 
bearing open and candid.' 

No doubt this portrait errs on the side of flattery. The 
Due du Maine had many excellent qualities, but he was 
not endowed with ' all the virtues.' Ambition and appre- 
hension struggled in him for the mastery. Had he been 
left to himself, his natural timidity would probably have 
gained the upper hand and kept him in the background ; 
as it was, the affection of Madame de Maintenon and the 
vanity of a daring and masterful wife were continually 



LOUIS XIV 163 

pushing hiin forward towards heights which he half 
longed, half feared to climb. He was assiduous in his 
attendance on the king ; his wife, a grand-daughter of the 
great Conde, seldom left Sceaux, where, surrounded by a 
little court of beaux esprits, she spent a deal of time and 
money in converting pleasure into a burden. 

His brother, the Comte de Toulouse, though less gifted, 
was more generally popular. A quiet, unassuming, and 
gentlemanly fellow, he had the rare distinction of holding 
entirely aloof from the intrigues that went on around him 
and of living almost without an enemy. 

Such was the society in which, after his conversion, 
Louis sought his chief relaxation from the cares of State. 
No doubt he did his best to unbend ; but to his stiff and 
formal nature unbending was an impossible feat, and his 
presence always created round him an atmosphere of 
constraint. That was the price he had to pay for the 
' imposing dignity ' which served him so well on public 
occasions, and which clung to him in private. It must be 
admitted too that he was arbitrary and not a little selfish. 
Accustomed to decide what was best for his subjects 
without fear of contradiction and in the firm belief that he 
was inspired, he mapped out the existence of his nearest 
and dearest with equal confidence, and was more than 
surprised if his plans encountered opposition. His own 
life went by clockwork. Like most busy men he had 
early realised the value of method. Each day had its 
allotted hours for work, social duties, and recreation ; each 
year its appointed periods of sojourn at Versailles, Marly, 
and Fontainebleau. Towards the close of his life, he 
became the slave of this self-imposed routine, and nothing 
annoyed him so much as to have his plans in any way upset. 

The conversion of the king had set a new fashion at 
Court. In 1683 Madame de Maintenon had written to 
her brother from Fontainebleau, • I think the late queen has 

M 2 



164 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

asked God that the Court might be converted, . . . The 
ladies who seemed fm^thest from reHgion are now hardly 
ever out of church. Mme, de Montchevreuil, Mesdames 
de Chevreuse and Beauvillier, and the Princesse d'Har- 
court, in a word, all our devotes, are not more regular in 
their attendance than Mmes. de Montespan, de Thianges, 
the Comtesse de Gramont, the Duchesse du Lude, and 
Mme. de Soubise. An ordinary Sunday is now like 
Easter Sunday.' Probably Madame de Maintenon was 
writing with intentional sarcasm. If not, she soon dis- 
covered her mistake. The Court flocked to services, 
yawned, and bitterly regretted the merry times of the pre- 
devotional days. ' The Court is growing so dull,' wrote 
Madame in 1687, ' that people are getting to loathe it : 
for the king imagines that he is pious if he makes life a 
bore to other people. It is hopeless when people refuse to 
follow their own reasons and are led by interested priests 
and old courtesans ' (a hit at Madame de Maintenon). ' It 
makes life a burden to honest and sincere folk.' 

And, till the Duchess of Burgundy came to infuse new 
life and gaiety into the daily routine, Versailles remained 
a dull place for the pleasure-loving youth of France. The 
day of fetes galantes and iles enchantees was over, and 
courtiers could hardly be expected to display an exuberant 
enthusiasm over the sermons of Bossuet or the latest 
additions to the gardens or Trianon, which were now the 
king's staple interests. 

It would have been well for France, if Louis' new- 
found zeal for religion had stopped at the curtailment 
of pleasures and the multiplying of devotional exercises. 
Unfortunately, the new life was inaugurated by an act 
which will always, and justly, be reckoned as the blackest 
of his reign. On October 20, 1685, he revoked the Edict 
of Nantes, and the Huguenots became outlaws. Con- 
versions on a large scale had been taking place at Bordeaux 



LOUIS XIV 165 

and in the dioceses of Montpellier, Nlmes, and Lyons. 
Glowing reports had been sent to the king, and Louis had 
persuaded himself that Calvinism was abdicating. ' The 
king,' wrote Madame de Maintenon, ' is very well, thank 
God, and rejoicing at the couriers who are continually 
arriving and announcing millions of conversions,' 

The atrocities which accompanied the Kevocation, 
though they had the approval of the bishops, shocked the 
better consciences of the time. Saint- Simon, a devout 
Eoman Catholic, who spent a yearly retreat amongst the 
Trappist monks, expresses his horror in biting words. 
' The monarch never doubted the sincerity of these con- 
versions 671 masse ; the converters took good care to per- 
suade him of their genuineness and to beatify him in 
advance. He swallowed the poison greedily. Never had 
he appeared to himself so great in the eyes of men, so 
pleasing to God, or so conspicuously engaged in the work 
of atonement for the sins and scandals of his life. He 
heard nothing but eulogies, whereas all real and genuine 
Cathohcs and the best of the bishops groaned in their 
hearts at seeing the orthodox employ against the errors of 
heresy the same methods with which pagan and heretical 
tyrants had persecuted the truth and the martyrs.' 

It is probable that the one man in France who never 
realised the brutality of the new crusade was Louis him- 
self. Not gifted with a vivid imagination, and cut off by 
his isolated position from all access to facts that did not 
happen immediately under his eyes, he saw what he was 
allowed to see and heard what it was thought good for him 
to hear. He was not naturally cruel ; nobody was more 
easily moved to tears, and he could be generous even to a 
heretic* To the end of his days he never doubted that 

' E.g. Buvigny was allowed to keep his property in France, even 
though he had entered the service of the Prince of Orange ; and it was not 
till he had served in several campaigns against his country and received 
repeated warnings that the concession was cancelled. 



166 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

the majority of the Huguenots were grateful for the kindly- 
pressure which had brought them back to the true fold, 
and that the few who had suffered belonged to an impos- 
sible type of mind, that w^as equally hostile to God and 
to good government. The intention was completely in 
harmony with the spirit of the age which witnessed the 
massacre of the Piedmontese and the Five Mile and Con- 
venticle Acts. It is improbable that the deed would have 
been perpetrated if religious intolerance had not been 
fortified by other and more secular considerations. It has 
always been the fate of religion to be called in to give a 
sanction to political crimes. To Louis, as to the British 
Parliament, Dissent was not only a perverted conception 
of faith but a dangerous political force incompatible with 
good government — ' No bishop, no king.' It was Louis' 
misfortune that, though his motives were equally unsound, 
his measures were more effective than those of our own 
Government. For the Eevocation of the Edict of Nantes 
was a gigantic blunder as well as a crime. It depopulated 
a quarter of the kingdom, ruined its commerce, sent the 
secrets of its manufactures into other lands, and deprived 
France of the very men who a century later might have 
steered the Eevolution into smoother channels. Nothing 
can excuse it. But perhaps the world cannot yet afford 
to throw too many stones. It is true that we no longer 
try to force our creeds and dogmas down reluctant throats 
at the point of the bayonet. It is to be hoped that we 
have acquired a truer insight into the spirit of our reli- 
gion ; certainly we have learned by experience that diversity 
of religious belief is not incompatible with political unity. 
* Our intolerance takes other forms, and shows itself rather 
in our impatience of competing ideals of civilisation than 
in our attitude towards rival religions. The modern 
empire does not have recourse to violent measures on 
behalf of an abstract principle of faith ; but it is apt to 



LOUIS XIV 167 

imagine that it has a mission to impose its language, its 
form of government, its commercial system, and its con- 
ception of the duties of the State to the individual and of 
the individual to the State, on alien peoples, who must be 
coerced if they cannot be persuaded. The instinct for 
liberty and the passion for uniformity, which are at the 
bottom of the Aryan character, have hardly yet adjusted 
their rival claims ; and, though we rightly condemn the 
bigotry of the seventeenth century, it is possible that, 
when posterity sits in judgment on the Europe that we 
know, it will discover in some of the developments of 
modern policy the workings of the same spirit that 
demanded the Eevocation of the Edict of Nantes. 

But it was not only the Huguenots who felt the king's 
heavy hand. Difference of opinion within the fold received 
no more mercy than schism. Louis was no theologian 
and had a very imperfect knowledge of the points in 
dispute, but, like most ignorant people, he had a profound 
reverence for the official way of thinking, and heterodoxy 
with him was synonymous with depravity. It is easy for 
a man, even for a good man, who is not compelled by the 
circumstances of his life to rub shoulders with those who 
differ from him on important questions, to develop, for 
opinions of which he disapproves, an intense hatred, which 
has all the attractiveness of a righteous indignation and 
which is easily transferred from the opinions to the people 
who hold them. Such a hatred Louis felt towards the 
Jansenists. It was of no avail that Jansenism had pro- 
duced some of the most learned and pious men of the day. 
A mere suspicion of the odious taint was enough to wreck 
a man's career at the Court of this most orthodox of 
monarchs. The Due d' Orleans, of regency fame, used to 
tell a story which, if not verbally accurate, nevertheless 
bears the stamp of dramatic truth. He had been appointed 
to the command in Spain and, in the course of a private 



168 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

interview, Louis had asked him whom he intended to take 
with him. The Due d'Orleans had mentioned among 
others a certain Fontpertuis. ' What ! my nephew,' 
exclaimed the king, visibly moved ; ' the son of that 
mad woman, who followed M. Arnauld everywhere? a 
Jansenist?' 'On my word, sire,' replied the duke, 'I 
know nothing about the mother ; but as for the son — he 
a Jansenist ? Why he doesn't even believe in God ! ' * Is 
it possible ? ' replied the king ; ' are you sure ? Of course, 
if that is the case, it doesn't matter, and you can take him 
with you.' 

It is to Louis' credit that, in the case of a few indi- 
viduals whose worth he had learned to value from personal 
experience, his human instincts were stronger than his 
religious scruples. Pomponne survived the taint of 
Jansenism, as Beauvillier and Chevreuse survived the 
charge of Quietism. But, where his judgment was no 
longer tempered by personal knowledge, he gave free play 
to his intolerance. His last and cruellest persecution was 
directed against the harmless nuns of Port-Koyal des 
Champs. This convent, which was a hotbed of the hated 
creed, had long been an object of suspicion and dislike ; 
for the notoriously saintly life of its inmates made it a 
justification of Jansenism. Pere la Chaise, the Jesuit 
confessor of the king, had been content to extinguish it 
slowly by refusing to allow the nuns to admit any new 
members into the order. But his successor, Pere le 
Tellier, was impatient of such dilatory methods. On the 
night of October 28, 1709, in pursuance of a royal decree, 
the convent was surrounded by detachments of the French 
and Swiss guards, and, on the following morning, 
d'Argenson, chief of police, arrived with squads of the 
Paris Archers. He had the doors opened, summoned all 
the inmates to the chapter-house, and showed them a lettre 
de cachet. In a quarter of an hour the poor nuns, packed 



LOUIS XIV 169 

into carriages and guarded like criminals, were being 
despatched in groups to their new destinations, ten, twenty, 
or even fifty leagues distant, where fresh trials and perse- 
cutions awaited them. When the place had been cleared, 
d'Argenson searched it from attic to basement and seized 
whatever he considered worth seizing. Then the buildings 
were demolished till not one stone was left upon another ; 
the bones of the dead were removed from their resting- 
place and reinterred without ceremony in a neighbouring 
cemetery ; and the site of what had once been a peaceful 
harbour of refuge to many gentle and pious souls was 
brought under the plough. 

Though Louis was the champion of orthodoxy, he was 
jealous of clerical interference and never dreamed of 
waiving his temporal rights. No ecclesiastic was ever 
admitted into the Council of State after Mazarin's death ; 
and not only did he appoint his own bishops but he insisted 
on their dependence upon himself. No cardinal might 
wear his hat in France till he had received it from the 
hands of the king, and no bishop might communicate 
with the Pope without the royal permission. The Arch- 
bishop of Aries received a sharp reprimand for an un- 
authorised correspondence with the Pope about some 
relics ; and Cardinal Le Camus, who had accepted the red 
cap directly from the hands of the Papal courier, was 
confined to his diocese of Grenoble for the rest of his life, 
and forbidden even to journey to the conclave which met 
to elect the successor of Innocent XI. 

The Eevocation of the Edict of Nantes and the destruc- 
tion of Port-Eoyal des Champs would seem to be the work 
of a man without scruples and without pity. It is inter- 
esting, therefore, to find that Louis was not inaccessible 
to remorse, even for an action which modern standards 
would probably palliate, if they did not wholly justify 
it. For Louis was never happy about the sack of the 



170 THE GEE AT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

Palatinate, which had been mainly the work of Louvois. He 
had always prided himself on conducting war in a generous 
and chivalrous spirit, and his smouldering discontent with 
a policy, to which his enemies had applied the epithet of 
barbarous, was fanned for one moment into the white heat 
of passion in a memorable scene which is infinitely to his 
credit. ' Louvois, not satisfied with the terrible work in 
the Palatinate, was anxious to burn Treves as well. He 
proposed it to the king as more necessary than anything 
that had been done at Spire or Worms, pointing out that 
the enemy would certainly use the place as a stronghold, 
and that its position would make it far more dangerous to 
France than the two fortresses which had been already 
destroyed for similar reasons. The dispute waxed warm ; 
but Louis refused to be convinced, and Madame de Mainte- 
non, who shared his scruples, supported him in his refusal. 

* A few days afterwards, Louvois, who was excessively 
obstinate and accustomed to get his way in the end, came 
to work as usual with the king in Madame de Maintenon's 
room. When the business in hand had been dispatched, 
Louvois informed his master that he sympathised with 
the scruples which had restrained him from ordering a 
measure so necessary for the State as the burning of 
Treves; that he felt he should be doing him a service 
by taking the responsibility upon his own shoulders, and 
that consequently he had, on his own initiative, despatched 
a courier to Treves with orders to burn the town imme- 
diately. 

* The king was habitually calm even under the most 
trying circumstances ; but on this occasion he lost for a 
moment his self-control. Seizing the tongs, he rushed at 
Louvois, and would have struck him, had not Madame de 
Maintenon flung herself between the two men, crying, 
"Ah, sire, what are you about to do?" and snatched the 
weapon from his hands. Meanwhile, Louvois was making 



LOUIS XIV 171 

for the door, and the king cried after him with flaming 
eyes, " Send off a courier at once to cancel the order, and 
see that he arrives in time. If a single house is burned, 
you shall answer for it with your head." ' ^ 

As a matter of fact, though Louvois had had a courier 
in readiness to start with the fatal order, he had been 
prudent enough to delay the man's departure until he had 
seen how the king took the news. Needless to say, after 
the foregoing scene he promptly recalled the despatch. 
But the king always believed that the first courier had 
started and that a second had overtaken him by dint of 
hard riding. 

Louis, as has been already said, chose his Ministers 
from the ranks of the petite noblesse, for his theory of 
government required that they should be entirely depen- 
dent on himself — the mere instruments of his policy. 
Men whose fortunes were bound up with the royal favour 
were less likely to take an independent line than a Eohan 
or a Guise, and could be dismissed if necessary without 
fear of vexatious consequences. Louis always imagined 
that his was the master mind which shaped and moulded 
the thoughts of his subordinates. In reality the parts 
were often reversed. The task of governing a kingdom 
single-handed was beyond his limited capacity, and, skil- 
fully handled, he could be made to follow where he thought 
that he was leading. His ministers kept him busy with 
a mass of detail, for which he had special aptitudes, but 
held the main threads of policy in their own hands, suggest- 
ing to him, when occasion required, the ideas which he sub- 
sequently regarded as his own. If he had had the gift of 
choosing the best men, the plan might have worked suc- 
cessfully ; but Louis was just clever enough to be afraid 
of clever people, and he preferred to deal with men whom 
he considered inferior to himself in ability. With such 
' Saint- Simon. 



172 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

men he felt at his ease, and, having no cause to fear them, 
he insisted that all business of State should pass through 
their hands. This habit of never discussing political 
questions with anyone who was outside the official circle 
entailed disastrous consequences. Hardworking as he 
was, Louis could not effectively control the various State 
departments, and, cut off by his own act from outside 
criticism or advice, he was completely in the hands of his 
Secretaries of State, who, within certain limits, could lead 
him at their own discretion. 

From ministers to whom he was attached by habit 
he would stand much, and even surrender his better judg- 
ment to their importunities. He sometimes felt and 
regretted his weakness. No custom was more fatal to 
good government than that of survivances, by which a 
favoured individual was allowed to purchase the right of 
succession to an office or charge, either for himself or for 
his heirs. In the case of the merely decorative posts, such 
as those of grand-chamberlain or master of the wardrobe, 
no great harm was done. But it was a very different 
matter when a Secretary of State retired and the monarch 
found that, in the appointment of a successor, his hands 
were already tied by a rash concession. To cancel the 
bond was to do injustice to the purchaser, who had often 
paid a large sum for the privilege ; to acquiesce was to 
sacrifice the public good to private interests. Louis dis- 
liked survivances and had wisely resolved never to allow 
them in the departments of State. But his good nature 
proved stronger than his principles, and both Louvois and 
Chamillart were allowed to treat their posts as personal 
and private property. Chamillart's claim was bought off, 
at a time when money was scarce and the treasury empty ; 
but it was in virtue of such a compact that Louvois was 
succeeded in the Ministry of "War by his son Barbesieux, 
a young man of no experience. 



LOUIS XIV 173 

It is characteristic of Louis that he followed least the 
advice of his ablest minister. Colbert, the enemy of waste, 
made repeated but fruitless efforts to check the royal 
extravagance. Louis listened to him courteously and read 
his memoranda with care ; but he ignored the proffered 
advice, and the minister had to bear the odium of a policy 
which he had done his best to check. When he died, in 
1683, his coffin had to be protected by a detachment of 
the royal footguards from the fury of the populace who 
would have torn the corpse in pieces, and the chapel in 
which he was buried was placarded with insulting pas- 
quinades. 

Louvois, his successful rival, an able but unscrupulous 
man, flattered the king's weakness and enhanced his own 
importance by plunging the country into a state of per- 
petual war. Convinced that he had made himself indis- 
pensable, and impatient of contradiction, he became, as 
time went on, too careless of the means he employed to 
bring Louis into line with his own views ; and his self- 
confidence brought about his disgrace. The dispute over 
the fate of Treves had done much to shake his credit, and 
an incident which occurred during the siege of Mons 
completed his ruin. 

' The king prided himself on his knowledge of military 
detail. One day, as he was walking through the camp, he 
came upon a cavalry outpost faultily placed, and himself 
corrected the mistake. Passing by the same place in the 
afternoon, he found the outpost back in its original posi- 
tion. Surprised and annoyed, he asked the captain who 
had placed him there ; and the officer replied that it was 
Louvois, who had passed by after the king. " But," replied 
Louis, *' didn't you tell him that it was I who had changed 
your position ? " " Yes, sire," replied the captain. The 
king turned angrily to his suite and said, " Isn't that just 



174 THE GEEAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

like Louvois '? He thinks he is a great general and knows 
everything ! " ' ^ 

' From this moment the king's coolness to his minister 
became so marked that Louvois could not fail to notice it, 
and his apprehensions were aroused. One day he was 
driving the Marechale de Eocheforfc and Mme. de Blansac 
in a light carriage through the park of Meudon, holding 
the reins himself. By and by he fell into a sort of reverie 
and began to think aloud. Several times the ladies heard 
him say, " Will he do it ? "Will they make him do it ? No ; 
and yet . . . No, he won't dare to." And so absorbed 
was he in his reflections that, if the Marechale had not 
suddenly snatched the reins from his hands, he would have 
driven the party straight into one of the artificial lakes.' ^ 

A sudden death saved him from the disgrace which 
was imminent. He was taken ill one afternoon in July, 
1691, as he was working with the king in Madame de 
Maintenon's room. He just had time to regain his own 
apartment ^ on foot, and there expired. As was usual in 
such cases, there were sensational stories of poison ; but it 
is practically certain that death was due to haemorrhage 
of the lungs. 

A few hours later the king was walking on the southern 
terrace, which overlooks the Orangerie and is itself com- 
manded by the upper windows of the Hotel de la Surin- 
tendance where the former minister was lying dead, when 
a messenger arrived from James II. at St. -Germain to 
condole with the monarch on his sudden and unexpected 
loss. ' Sir,' said Louis in the most indifferent tones, ' give 
my best thanks to the King and Queen of England, and 
tell them that my interests will not suffer in any way.' 
This was the only public allusion which Louis made to the 

' Saint-Simon. * Ibid. 

^ In the Hotel de la Surintendance, adjoining the end of the south wing 
of the palace. 



LOUIS XIV 175 

death of his minister. There is no reason to suppose that 
he had intended, as Saint- Simon beheved, to send Louvois 
to the Bastille or that the warrant had been signed ; but, 
undoubtedly, he regarded the sudden death of the obnoxious 
minister as a release. It saved him the odium of a dis- 
missal and a disagreeable scene. 

Equally characteristic of Louis was the fact that, of all 
his ministers, he was personally most attached to the 
one who was least capable. Chamillart had first made the 
acquaintance of his sovereign at the billiard-table. He 
was an honest, painstaking man, but quite unequal to the 
double burden of war and finance with which Louis saddled 
him on the death of Louvois, in order to avoid friction 
between the two departments. He repaid the king's con- 
fidence with an entire devotion. Saint-Simon, who knew 
him intimately, says of him that, ' II awiait le roi comme 
une maitresse.'' But affection could not make up for lack 
of capacity, and his tenure of office was marked by a long 
series of military disasters and growing financial diffi- 
culties. Louis clung to him tenaciously through years of 
defeat ; but, after Oudenarde and the loss of Lille, he had to 
sacrifice him to the public clamour. The fall was softened 
by such marks of personal esteem as few unsuccessful 
ministers have received from their sovereign. 

Amidst the gathering clouds which overshadowed the 
last twenty years of his life the king had found one ray of 
unexpected sunshine in his own immediate circle. As a 
political speculation the marriage of the future Dauphin ^ 
to the daughter of the Duke of Savoy had proved a failure ; 
for the duke joined the European alliance and became a 
thorn in the side of a harassed France. But, from the 
moment when he first set eyes on her, the king was fasci- 
nated by the charming bride. She brought into the stiff 
and formal gatherings in the private cabinet an atmosphere 
' Louis due de Bourgogne, the king's grandson. 



176 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

of youth and gaiety, and something of that joie de vivre 
which makes the old feel young again. With an affectionate 
nature and pretty coaxing ways she combined a conscious- 
ness of her power to charm which made her unafraid of 
the king even in his severest moods. There were times 
when she had to pay rather dearly for her ascendency. 
Louis was not happy without her ; wherever he went the 
Duchesse de Bourgogne must go too ; and, as he was not 
in the habit of consulting the convenience of anybody but 
himself, her movements had to be regulated by his caprices, 
sometimes not without considerable risk to life or health. 
In 1706, when the approaching confinement of the duchess 
made a long journey inadvisable for her, Madame de 
Maintenon had the greatest difficulty in staving off the 
autumnal visit to Fontainebleau. She did not dare to show 
her hand openly. Various pretexts were invented for 
keeping the king busy in the neighbourhood of Versailles, 
and the journey was put off from week to week, till at last 
the lateness of the season made it altogether impossible. 
Louis, who was quite unconscious of the mancEUvres of 
which he was the object, was annoyed at the final result 
and showed his displeasure for several days. 

Worse still was his behaviour over one of the weekly 
visits to Marly in the spring of 1708. The duchess was 
once more in an interesting condition. Marly was only a 
short drive from Versailles, but Fagon had expressed an 
opinion that the journey would be dangerous, and Madame 
de Maintenon was anxious. Under these circumstances 
it might have been supposed that the king would either 
have abandoned the visit altogether or have left the 
duchess at Versailles. But Louis had never been accus- 
tomed to have his plans interfered with by similar con- 
siderations. The queen and his mistresses had always 
accompanied him in all states of health, and he could not 
enjoy Marly unless the princess were there. In answer 



LOUIS XIV 177 

to the remonstrances of his womankind he put off the visit 
twice ; but on the third occasion he was firm, and the 
Duchesse de Bourgogne was placed in a carriage and 
driven to Marly. ' On the following Saturday, after Mass, 
the king was amusing himself at the carp-pond, between 
the Chateau and the Perspective,^ with some members of 
the Court, when the Duchesse du Lude was seen advancing 
in his direction, alone, and with a face that betokened 
serious news. The king hastened to meet her, and after 
a few words rejoined his companions at the pond. " The 
Duchess of Burgundy has had a miscarriage," he said. 
Whereupon M. de Bouillon, the Due de Tresmes, and the 
Marechal de Boufflers, began to murmur their sorrow in 
an undertone, while M. de la Eochefoucauld expressed his 
fears aloud that, as a similar misfortune had occurred once 
before, the present accident might destroy all hope of 
future motherhood. "And supposing it should be so," 
cried the king with a sudden burst of anger, " what 
difference would it make to me ? Hasn't she already got 
a son ? And if he died, isn't the Due de Berry of an age 
to marry and have children ? I don't care who succeeds 
me : they would in any case be my grandsons." Then he 
added impetuously, " Thank heaven it has happened, since 
it had to be ! and I shan't have my journeys and my plans 
upset again by the representations of doctors and the 
arguments of matrons." ' ^ 

Although such words reveal a deplorable egotism, it 
would be unfair to lay too much stress on them, or to 
forget that, with selfish and arbitrary natures, a conscious- 
ness of wrongdoing sometimes displays itself, at the first 
blush, in extraordinary ways. Temper, even when savage 
and repulsive, is often the sign in certain characters of an 
uneasy conscience ; and, when the psychological moment 

' A building, masked by trees, which lay to the right of the Chateau. 
* Saint-Simon. 

N 



178 THE GEE AT DAYS OF VEESAILLES 

had come, the king was not incapable of acknowledging 
his faults, * You have no idea,' said Madame de 
Maintenon in 1707, ' how gentle the king is. I can use a 
greater freedom in speaking to him about his faults than 
I can with a thousand others. For instance, a few days 
ago I said to him, about an important matter, " Sire, what 
you have done is bad, and you have acted very wrongly." 
He received my rebuke marvellously well, and even 
humbly. The next day we were forced to speak again of 
this matter, and I tried to glide over it gently, saying, 
"What is done is done, and it is no use thinking of it." 
He replied : " Do not attempt to excuse me, Madame ; 
I am very much to blame." ' 

The truth seems to be that, though in the greater 
vexations and trials of life the king often showed an 
admirable self-restraint, he was easily put out by little 
things. He was, above all, inexorable on small points of 
etiquette, and any breach of what he considered the laws 
of decorum excited in him an indignation that was some- 
times ludicrously out of proportion to the nature of the 
offence. 

At Marly the rigid observance of precedence, which 
was obligatory at Versailles, was somewhat relaxed, and 
the more good-natured of the great people did not stand 
quite so much on their dignity. One day at dinner, Mme. 
de Torcy, wife of the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, 
had seated herself next to Madame, when the Duchesse de 
Duras entered and came to the same side of the table. 
Mme. de Torcy pressed her to take her place, but the 
duchess politely refused the offer and sat down below her. 
Shortly afterwards the king came in, and immediately fixed 
his eyes so sternly on Mme. de Torcy that she became em- 
barrassed and once more entreated the Duchesse de Duras 
to change places, but without effect. All through the meal 
the king, who hardly withdrew his eyes from the two 



LOUIS XIV 179 

neighboui's of Madame, said little, and that in so irritable 
a tone that it was patent to everybody that something had 
excited his extreme displeasure. After dinner he retired, as 
usual, with the privileged few to Madame de Maintenon's 
sanctum ; and there, no sooner had he sat down than he 
gave vent to his pent-up feelings. He said 'that he had 
just been witness of a piece of impertinence which had 
made him so angry that he had been unable to eat ; that 
such audacity would have been intolerable in a lady of 
quality and good birth, and that in a little bourgeoise, a 
daughter of Pomponne, whose real name was Arnauld and 
who had married a Colbert, the thing was simply incre- 
dible ; that he had been several times on the point of 
ordering her to leave the room, and had only been pre- 
vented from doing so by his respect for her husband.' ^ 
It was in vain that the Duchesse de Bourgogne and the 
other princesses tried to calm him and make excuses for 
the lady on the ground of her youth and inexperience. 
He could talk of nothing else for four whole days, and 
Torcy had the utmost difficulty in procuring his wife's 
pardon, in spite of the most humble apologies. 

Power, flattery, and an undisciplined childhood, had all 
combined to make Louis selfish, and, though punctiliously 
courteous to his subjects and considerate to his inferiors, 
he was, perhaps unconsciously, sadly indifferent to the 
prejudices or convenience of his familiar friends. It is 
necessarily difficult for a monarch to distinguish what it 
is his duty to claim as a sovereign from what he ought to 
sacrifice as an individual. De la Eochefoucauld, the one 
companion of his youth for whom the king retained a real 
affection, had to pay for the distinction by a complete loss 
of liberty. For forty years he did not ' sleep out ' more 
than twenty times, and he had to ask for leave of absence 
even if he wished to attend a dinner-party or to miss the 

' Saint- Simon. 

N 2 



180 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

royal walk. Madame de Maintenon herself, though treated 
on the rare occasions when she appeared in public with an 
almost exaggerated deference, had often to suffer in private 
from a similar want of consideration. She had a more 
than German horror of draughts. Even on the hottest 
days the windows of her carriage or her bedroom were 
kept hermetically sealed. Louis, on the other hand, loved 
fresh air and hated stuffy rooms. Frequently on entering 
his wife's apartment his first act was to walk up to the 
windows and throw them open, even when the unfortunate 
lady was ill in bed with fever. This circumstance lends 
a touch of pathos to a remark, already quoted, of Madame 
de Maintenon's, who, when holding forth to hex protegees 
at Saint-Cyr on the hardships of matrimony, had com- 
plained feelingly that a wife was not even allowed to shut 
her own windows. 

Madame de Maintenon, who had perhaps studied the 
king more closely and more shrewdly than anybody else, 
observed that his anger ' grew by reflection,' and that his 
first outburst of passion was less dangerous than his 
studied and convinced resentment. His self-control was 
indeed remarkable, and there is only one recorded occa- 
sion on which he completelj'- forgot his dignity in public. 
It happened at Marly in 1695. The king had just heard 
of the ridicule which his favourite bastard ^ had incurred 
in Flanders through his want of military capacity and his 
apparent deficiency in personal courage ; and the news 
had caused him bitter mortification. As he was leaving 
the dinner-table, in the presence of all the ladies and 
courtiers, he noticed that one of the valets who were 
removing the dessert was in the act of putting a biscuit into 
his pocket. In a moment his passion blazed up ; he 
rushed at the offender, rated him soundly, and struck him 
across the shoulders with the cane he was carrying, till the 

' The Due du Maine. 



LOUIS XIV 181 

weapon, which was a very light one, broke in his hand. 
Then, still muttering abuse, he passed through the group 
of silent and dismayed spectators to Madame de Main- 
tenon's room. An habitually self-restrained man, who has 
yielded unexpectedly to a sudden passion, is tempted to 
find excuses for his action and can seldom bring himself 
at once to acknowledge his fault. It was only natural 
therefore that when, an hour later, he met his confessor, 
Pere la Chaise, Louis should try to carry off the slip with 
a show of confidence. "Father," he said aloud, " I have 
given a scoundrel a good thrashing and broken my cane 
over his back ; but I don't think I have offended God." To 
avoid irritating the king, the confessor murmured some- 
thing that might be taken for approval ; but there can be 
little doubt that Louis was duly rebuked for his temper in 
private, for Pere la Chaise was no coward. 

There was much to try the patience of the monarch in 
the early years of the eighteenth century. Abroad, defeat 
after defeat ; Blenheim followed by Eamillies, Oudenarde, 
and Malplaquet ; French territory invaded ; his grandson^ 
all but driven from the Spanish throne ; and peace only 
to be obtained on the most humiliating terms. At home, 
poverty and discontent, and the suffering increased by 
inclement seasons. In the first weeks of 1709 winter set 
in with exceptional severity. ' It has never been so cold,' 
wrote Madame, ' within the memory of man ; every morn- 
ing one hears of people who have been found frozen to 
death, and partridges are picked up dead in the fields. 
All the theatres are closed as well as the law courts; 
neither presidents nor councillors can sit in their courts 
on account of the cold.' And frost was followed by famine. 
* One cannot go out,' wrote the same princess in October, 
' without being followed by crowds of poor people who are 
black with hunger. The dearth is frightful. Everywhere 

' Philippe V. 



182 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

one sees people dropping, literally dead of starvation. One 
hears nothing but lamentation and groaning from, the 
lowest to the highest.' In Paris a serious riot among the 
starving artisans was only prevented from becoming 
dangerous by the tact and courage of the Marechal de 
Boufflers ; and in the country things were no better. In 
May of the same year Madame de Maintenon, writing to 
the Abbess of Gomerf ontaine, observed : ' You will be dis- 
appointed not to have Mile. d'Aumale with you; but she 
and I are both afraid of some unpleasant adventure on the 
road. The dread of famine has made the common people 
so excited that it is not safe to face them.' 

When the wolf was prowling round the doors of the 
overtaxed peasants, it was not likely that money would flow 
freely into the royal treasury ; yet money was absolutely 
necessary, no longer for foreign conquest, but to defend 
the soil of France. The king pawned his jewels and sent 
his gold plate to the mint. Whatever could be converted 
into current coin followed the same path, and the courtiers, 
secretly murmuring at the sacrifice which they were com- 
pelled to make, did not dare to refuse the offer of their 
own silver, and learned to eat off china and earthenware. 
Madame de Maintenon remarked bitterly of their self- 
denial that, though they complained of being ruined, they 
did not economise in their dress. And, during all this time 
of distress, while the poor were dying at their doors, the 
nobles did not alter their mode of life or sacrifice a single 
pleasure. They could always find money for cards. 

Louis himself was greater in adversity than he had 
been in the days of his prosperity. Whatever his secret 
thoughts might be, his outward demeanour was calm, 
dignified, and confident. He cut down a few of the 
expenses which his lavish hospitality had entailed, and his 
guests at Marly no longer received their board gratis ; but 
he would do nothing to show his enemies how low they 



LOUIS XIV 183 

had brought him, and the balls at Marly, in the January 
of 1709, were deliberately intended as a challenge to his 
foes and a proof to the world that France was not dis- 
mayed. As long as he could, he clung tenaciously to the 
belief that the war was popular and that his people were 
with him heart and soul. Like all men who have drunk 
the poison of flattery, he loved to be duped. In 1705, 
losses in the field rendered a fresh levy of 25,000 men 
necessary, and the exhausted provinces were in despair. 
But Louis believed the flattering stories that were told 
him of universal eagerness to serve, and repeated them 
fatuously to others ; and, to clinch his convictions, some 
carefully selected and well-paid conscripts were brought 
to Marly and charmed him with their fictitious enthusiasm. 

But after 1709, in spite of the generous response which 
France had made to the king's appeals, it was impossible for 
the most credulous of optimists to be deceived any longer ; 
and the tears which he would sometimes shed in the privacy 
of Madame de Maintenon's room were a truer indication 
of Louis' secret feelings than the face of unruffled calm 
which he displayed to his Court. Madame de Maintenon 
was a stern comforter. ' You are right, madame,' she 
wrote to the Princesse des Ursins, ' in thinking that we 
must look at all that is happening to us as sent by God. 
Our king was too proud ; God wishes to humble him in 
order to save him. France had pushed her conquests too 
far, and perhaps unjustly ; he wishes to confine her 
within narrower limits, which, perhaps, will be all the 
more secure. Our nation was insolent and unbridled ; 
God wishes to punish and humiliate us.' 

But the crowning trials came, not from the enemy, but 
from the hand of death. It was Louis' misfortune not 
only to outlive his own generation but to see his children 
and grandchildren sink one by one into the grave, his son 
in 1711, the Due and Duchesse de Bourgogne and their 



184 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

eldest boy in 1712, and the Due de Berry two years later. 
In 1714, of all tliat band of young and happy faces which 
had once surrounded the throne and made the succession 
apparently secure, there was none left but the Due 
d'Anjou, a sickly child still in the nursery. In this sudden 
and startling isolation, Louis, yielding to family pressure, 
made the fatal mistake of raising his bastard sons to the 
succession. A will, containing secret clauses to this effect, 
was handed over to the Paris Parliament for safe keeping. 
Probably the king hardly thought that his wishes would 
be ratified. In any case, the Parliament set them aside 
when the will was opened and the monarch who had made 
it was no more. 

It is impossible to contemplate the last three years 
of this long reign without a feeling of genuine pity and 
respect for the lonely monarch. There was something 
almost heroic in the way in which he forced himself to 
live up to his ideal of kingship. He had steered the ship 
of State amongst the rocks, but, sad and weary as he was, 
his hand never faltered on the tiller till death struck him 
down at his post. Many wiser and better rulers have 
shown less courage in adversity. No doubt the habit of 
long years came to his aid ; he was so inured to routine 
that probably he could not have lived without it ; and his 
days were too full to leave him much time for brooding 
over the past. Councils of state, councils of finance, the 
drive to Marly or Trianon, the long hours of private work 
with his ministers, and the endless public functions of the 
Court kept his mind mechanically busy. Nevertheless, 
life must have been horribly blank, as it always is when 
the future holds no promise in store. Louis was not an 
imaginative man ; but in spite of the crowds that followed 
his every movement he must have found the great rooms 
and galleries of Versailles strangely cold and empty ; and, 
as he went daily to and from the chapel, he must some- 



LOUIS XIV 185 

times have felt the bitter mockery of the painted ceilings, 
where le roi soleil in the zenith of his splendour triumphed 
over his enemies and planted his foot on the neck of con- 
quered Europe. 

With the death of the Duchesse de Bourgogne a silence 
had fallen upon the Court. The days of dance, and/e^es, 
and masked balls, and light laughter, seemed to have 
vanished for ever. The dreary routine of Court life went 
on as before, and the survivors of the stricken family met 
daily in the royal cabinet to talk of indifferent matters ; 
but there was no sunshine among the shadows ; only the 
sad grey twilight of a November evening. The king was 
more than ever in Madame de Maintenon's rooms, and the 
task of cheating him into a momentary forgetfulness of 
the past became increasingly difficult. Music was the 
great resource, and several times a week a band of violins 
and oboes played familar airs in the great lady's ante- 
chamber. Occasionally these same musicians, transformed 
into actors and personally coached by the king, performed 
his favourite plays. Moliere had been the delight of his 
youth, and Moliere remained the favourite of his old age. 
Between the December of 1712 and the August of 1715 
there were nineteen such performances, amongst which 
' Le Bourgeois Gentilliomme ' figured four times, * Le 
Medecin malgre lui ' thrice, and * Georges Dandin,'' 
' UAvare,' and ' Le Mariage force' twice each.' 

Death came at last, not very painfully but some- 
what slowly. Louis had been no stranger to illness. In 
1686 he had been laid up for many months with an 
abscess on the leg, which had caused him intense suffering 
and had only been cured at last by a long and painful 
operation. He had often also been a martyr to gout and 
compelled to use a kind of bath-chair (fauteuil a roues), 
not only for outdoor exercise but even for getting from 

' Dangeau. 



186 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

room to room. Fagon's remedy had been to swaddle him 
at night in feather pillows, and the treatment was con- 
tinued after the attacks had ceased. In his later years the 
king suffered little from his old enemy, but the copious 
perspiration, which rendered a change of shirt necessary 
every morning before the Court was admitted to the bed- 
chamber, had reduced him very much in weight and must 
have been distinctly lowering. The loss of most of his 
teeth, in 1701, not only changed his appearance very con- 
siderably but constituted a real danger to a man who ate 
so prodigiously as Louis. It is true that he never touched 
food between meals, and he could defer a meal for hours 
without being plagued by hunger ; but, as he used to 
observe himself, ' the first mouthful of hot soup opened the 
gates of appetite,' and he never failed to perform in a way 
that astonished all beholders. By Fagon's advice he had 
substituted old Burgundy, mixed with water, for the cham- 
pagne which had been his ordinary drink at table ; and he 
was also accustomed to take daily a glass of sage or 
veronica. Conservative in his tastes, he never touched 
coffee, tea, or chocolate ; but he drank a great deal of iced 
water. Under medical orders he ate much over-ripe fruit, 
especially melons, at the beginning of every meal. But 
he was not a good patient, and disliked restrictions on his 
diet. All his dishes were highly spiced, and he consumed 
great quantities of sweets and pastry. Fagon used to 
make faces, and sometimes ventured on a protest to the 
royal caterers ; but they replied that it was their business 
to feed the king and Fagon's to purge him. 

In 1715 his health was failing. Marechal and his 
valets noticed the change, but Fagon and Madame de 
Maintenon were blind. However, in the beginning of 
August he began to suffer from a pain in the leg, which 
made standing or walking painful and which was mis- 
taken for sciatica. On August 9 he followed the hunt for 



LOUIS XIV 187 

the last time, in his carriage, and showed signs of great 
fatigue on his return. On the 10th he went for a drive to 
Marly, and Dangeau, who was present in the evening at 
his coucher, was startled by his extreme weakness. ' He 
was so exhausted that he could hardly walk from his 
cabinet to his pi-ie-dieu,' and his body had become so thin 
that it looked ' as if the flesh had all been melted off.' On 
the morning of the 11th, after a council of state he was 
wheeled in his bath-chair round the gardens of Trianon. 
It was the last time that he left the palace alive. 

For the next few days, though his leg was often 
painful, he went through his usual routine without any 
alteration, except that he retired to bed at ten instead of 
midnight. He was taken daily in his fauteuil a roues to 
hear Mass in the chapel. On the 13th, he took leave in 
public of the Persian ambassador,^ standing the whole 
time. His nights were now beginning to be disturbed ; 
he seldom fell asleep before three or four a.m. and suffered 
from continual thirst. The doctors disagreed as to whether 
he were feverish, but they ordered him asses' milk and 
quinine. A suspicious-looking sore had appeared below 
the right knee, and the bandages round his leg prevented 
him from wearing his ordinary clothes ; consequently, he 
heard Mass and transacted state business in bed. But 
he generally rose at 5 p.m. and was carried to Madame de 
Maintenon's room to enjoy some music. 

On Saturday, August 24, his leg gave him much pain. 
He dined in bed and held a council of finance; after 
which he worked alone with the chancellor. In the 
evening he rose, and the Court was admitted for the last 
time to see him supping in public, in his dressing-gown ; 
but a recrudescence of pain compelled him to dismiss the 
spectators before the meal was ended and to hurry back 

' This ambassador, who subsequently proved to be an impostor, had 
been made much of at Versailles. 



188 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

to bed. Certain black spots, which had appeared below 
the knee, alarmed the doctors and gave grounds for appre- 
hension that the limb was mortifying. 

Sunday, August 25, was the f^te-day of St. -Louis, and 
in accordance with a time-honoured custom the king was 
roused at dawn by the drums and trumpets of the guards 
playing under his window in the Cour de Marbre. In 
the morning he added a codicil to his will by which he gave 
the command of all his household, civil and military, to 
the Due du Maine, and thereby considerably lessened the 
power and authority of the future Eegent. At dinner-time 
the orchestra of twenty-four violins and oboes played in 
his antechamber,^ the door of which was left constantly 
open ; and the musicians were expecting to give another 
concert at 7 p.m. But in the course of the afternoon the 
king had fallen asleep ; and, when he woke up at seven, his 
pulse was so bad and his brain so clouded that the players 
were hastily dismissed, and his confessor, Pere le Tellier, 
summoned instead. Louis had quickly recovered com- 
plete possession of his faculties, but a shivering fit, and 
the intuition which comes to dying people warned him 
that he had entered on the final stage of his illness and 
that his hours were numbered. He confessed, and received 
absolution ; and at eight o'clock Cardinal de Eohan, 
accompanied by the cure of the parish and seven or eight 
lackeys bearing torches, came in with the viaticum and 
the sacred oils, and the king received the last sacraments 
of the Church. The ceremony lasted nearly an hour. 
When it was over, Louis finished the codicil he had been 
writing and handed it to the Chancellor. He then sent 
for his nephew, the Due d'Orleans, and the Due du Maine, 
and spoke to each of them separately for some time. After 
which the curtains of his bed were drawn and he tried to 
get some sleep. 

' This room was afterwards known as theCEil de Boeuf. 



LOUIS XIV 189 

Monday, August 26, was mainly occupied in saying 
good-bye. At 10 a.m. the wound was dressed and lanced 
several times to the bone. While this operation was 
being performed, Madame de Maintenon knelt alone at 
the foot of the bed. At noon the dying man sent for the 
little Dauphin, who was brought in by his governess, 
Mme. de Ventadour. ' Little one,' said Louis, ' you are 
going to be a great king ; but your happiness will depend 
on your submission to God and the good that you do to 
your people. You must avoid war as far as you can, for 
it is the ruin of nations. Do not follow the bad example 
that I have set you. I have often begun war too lightly 
and continued it through vanity. Do not imitate me ; but 
be a peaceful prince, and let your principal care be to 
relieve the distress of your subjects. Profit by the good 
education which Mme. de Ventadour is giving you ; obey 
her, and follow also the good advice of Pere le Tellier, 
whom I give you as confessor.' Then, after speaking a 
few kind words to Mme. de Ventadour, he burst into 
tears, kissed the Dauphin repeatedly and gave him his 
blessing. At half-past twelve he heard Mass, and, when 
the service was over, he called the principal officers of the 
household to his bedside. * Gentlemen,' he said, ' I am 
grateful for your services ; you have served me loyally and 
with a desire to please. I regret that I have not been able 
to reward you better, but the troubles of recent years have 
made that impossible. Serve the Dauphin with the same 
affection that you have shown to me ; he is a child of five 
and may have many trials to endure, for I remember that 
I had many in my youth. I am dying, but the State is 
eternal ; be faithfully attached to it, and let your conduct 
be an example to all my other subjects. . . . Obey the 
orders that my nephew gives you. He is going to govern 
the kingdom, and I hope that he will rule wisely. I hope 
that you will do your duty too, and that you will some- 



190 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

times think of me,' The king then sent for the Due 
d' Orleans and recommended Madame de Maintenon to his 
special care ; after which Madame and the princesses were 
admitted to say their last farewell. They had not the 
firmness and composure of the monarch, and for the short 
time that they were present the room was filled with cries 
and lamentations. 

For the next two days, though the patient's strength 
was ebbing slowly, the disease did not appear to be making 
any progress, and wild hopes were occasionally enter- 
tained that life might still be prolonged. But Louis 
himself was under no such delusion. His brain for the 
most part was clear, and his grip of detail and love of 
method remained with him while consciousness lasted. 
He had arranged that, as soon as all was over, the Dauphin 
should be removed to Vincennes, where the air was 
healthier than at Versailles ; but, remembering that the 
Court had not been there for fifty years, he sent for a 
small box in which there was a detailed plan of the 
chateau, which he gave to Cavoye. Pere le Tellier and 
Madame de Maintenon were constantly at his side. To 
the latter he remarked once : ' I have always been told 
that it is difficult to die. For myself, now that I have 
reached the dread moment, I don't find it difficult,' On 
another occasion, seeing in a mirror the reflection of two 
of his servants who were weeping silently at the foot of 
his bed, he said : ' Why are you crying ? Did you think 
I was immortal ? / never thought so, and, considering my 
age, you ought to have been prepared to lose me long ago.' 

On Wednesday, the 28th, the inevitable quack appeared 
with an elixir that would cure gangrene at the most 
advanced stages. He was a Proven9al, named Le Brun, 
and hailed from Marseilles. After a consultation with the 
doctors, in which he explained the natm'e of his drug, Le 
Brun was allowed to experiment with his remedy, which 



LOUIS XIV 191 

had an evil smell and was administered in a glass of 
Alicante wine. ' I am not taking it,' said the king as he 
swallowed the nauseous mixture, * either in the hope or 
with the wish to get well ; but I know that in the condi- 
tion in which I am one must obey the doctors.' The use 
of the elixir was continued for three days. Needless to 
say, though it produced a temporary rally, it did no real 
good. On the same evening, Madame de Maintenon, who 
had been constantly by the king's side since his illness 
began, drove to Saint-Cyr to spend the night there and 
arrange the many small matters for which her presence 
was needed, returning on the following afternoon to her 
post in the sick chamber. On the 29th it was found that 
the gangrene had spread to the thigh, and on the follow- 
ing day ' the leg was in such a state that it might have 
belonged to a man who had been dead for six months.' ^ 
The king could still swallow a little jelly and pure water, 
but his hands had to be held while the nourishment was 
administered or ' he would have taken it out of his mouth.' 
Occasionally he spoke a few words, but life was purely 
mechanical, and he had little consciousness of what was 
happening round him. At five in the evening Madame de 
Maintenon distributed her few possessions amongst her 
servants, and drove off to Saint-Cyr, never to return. 

On Saturday, August 31, the end was very near. The 
king was in a comatose condition the whole day, and as a 
last resource the doctors administered ' Agnan's remedy ' for 
small-pox, which had been sent by the Duchesse du Maine. 
At 10.30 P.M. the almoners were introduced and recited 
the prayers for the dying. The familiar words struck 
upon the ears of the dying man and stirred some secret 
spring of memory, for he repeated the ' Ave ' and the 
' Credo ' several times in a loud clear voice. They were 
the last words he uttered. At a few minutes after 8.15 on 

' Dangeau. 



192 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

the morning of Sunday, September 1, he died without 
a struggle, within three days of his seventy-seventh birth- 
day and in the seventy-second year of his reign. 

The body was exposed to the pubHc gaze for the whole 
of the Sunday. On the Monday it was opened in the 
presence of the Due d'Elboeuf and the Marechal de 
Montesquiou and embalmed. The remains were then 
sealed in a coffin and placed in the largest of the state- 
rooms, where they remained for a week. The heart was 
eventually taken to the church of the Jesuits in the Eue 
St.-Antoine and the intestines to Notre Dame. The body 
was buried at St.-Denis on September 9, with little cere- 
mony, M. le Due, the senior Prince of the Blood, being 
the chief mourner. 

So ended one of the longest reigns of history. By 
many, and especially by the poor, the change of ruler was 
hailed with feelings of relief. But even the most thought- 
less could not fail to be impressed by an event which 
removed a striking and familiar figure from the scene and 
closed a stirring epoch. Louis XIV had many of the 
secondary qualities of greatness — courage, industry, and a 
stern, though narrow, sense of duty. But the inner light 
was wanting. The role for whch he had cast himself 
required genius for its successful performance, and the 
moderate intelligence which Nature had given him and 
his teachers had neglected sometimes failed to rise to the 
level of common-sense. He was genuinely anxious, for 
the greater part of his life, that his actions should conform 
to the divine will, but he had not the acumen to dis- 
tinguish between the will of God and the wishes of his 
confessor. Taught in the hard school of adversity, he 
learned to recognise and lament some of his most glaring 
faults ; but, by a strange irony of fate, his worst crimes 
were the direct outcome of what, to the very end, he 
believed to be his most conspicuous virtues. 



193 



CHAPTEE VII 

MADAME DB MAINTENON 

The power behind the throne — Her youth — Marries Scarron — Becomes a 
widow — Governess to Madame de Montespan's children — Quarrels with 
Madame de Montespan — Purchase of Maintenon — Her plans for 
retirement — Journey to Bareges — Her brother and his marriage — 
'Dame d'atour' to the Dauphine — Secretly married to the king — 
Proselytes— Saint-Cyr — Madame Guyon — Death of Charles d'Aubigne 
— A day of her life at Versailles — Her affection for the Duchess of 
Burgundy— Death of the king — She retires to Saint-Cyr — Her death. 

Behind the king and his Ministers, at the bottom of 
all failure and of every sudden change in the fortune of 
individuals, the Court suspected a dark and sinister in- 
fluence which they personified in Madame de Maintenon. 
Austerely dressed, the enemy of pleasure and the patroness 
of devots, she seldom left the small apartment opening on to 
the queen's staircase, where, inaccessible to all but a privi- 
leged few, she was supposed to hold in her hands the threads 
of policy and intrigue and to weave them into the web of 
history. No doubt she had her share in shaping the events 
of her time ; but her influence, though great, was neither so 
imlimited nor so direct as most of her contemporaries sup- 
posed. The seclusion of her life (for after 1683 she seldom 
appeared in public), and the strangeness of her fortunes, 
combined to give colour to the legend of which she became 
the centre, and to enhance the mystery of one who to 
Saint- Simon was ' la vieillefSe ' and to Madame ' la panto- 
crate.' Moreover, a traditional faith in a king who could 
do no wrong inclined men to seek in some malign external 

o 



194 THE GEEAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

influence the cause of his admitted failures. We, who 
stand in no such awe of Louis, need not be so ready to 
throw upon Madame de Maintenon the whole blame for 
his disastrous policy. 

Conscious of the part that was attributed to her, she 
was half amused and half annoyed. She had persuaded 
herself that power was a bm'den which she would gladly 
lay down, but she would probably have been unhappy 
without it. "With a genuine desire to be humble she 
often begged her subordinates to forget her splendid posi- 
tion and deal with her as if she were one of themselves ; 
but, if they took her too literally, they sometimes had cause 
to regret their candour. Nevertheless, though capable of 
managing, she was not a domineering nor, in the ordinary 
sense of the word, a masterful woman. Nor did her mind 
range over quite so wide a field of activity as her enemies 
supposed. Beligion and education were her two absorbing 
interests, and her political ideals hardly soared above a, 
desire to keep the king from relapsing into his earlier 
vices. 

Few people have passed more rapidly from a restricted 
popularity into a general odium. As Mme. Scarron she 
was the favourite of a small but cultured society of beaux 
esprits ; as Madame de Maintenon she was the gloomy 
figure who was held responsible for the things men 
detested most. It is not difficult to account for the change. 
Witty, refined, good-natured, and even-tempered, she 
lacked the imagination, the knowledge, and the grasp of 
general principles which might have made her influence 
in public affairs a valuable asset. An ideal governess, she 
was a bad stateswoman. Perhaps if she had been more 
highly gifted Louis would have admired her less. 

Fran9oise d'Aubigne was born on November 27, 1635, 
in the prison of Niort. Her grandfather, Agrippa d'Aubigne, 
a Huguenot follower of Henri IV, had been a sturdy 



MADAME DE MAINTENON 195 

warrior and author of a ' Universal History ' ; her father, 
Constant, was the * black sheep ' of the family, and, after 
being disinherited by his father and murdering his first 
wife, he had been imprisoned at Bordeaux on a charge 
of treason. Here the daughter of the prison governor, 
Jeanne de Cardilhac, a girl of sixteen, fell in love with 
and married him, in 1627. In 1628, probably through the 
influence of his father-in-law, he was released and resumed 
his adventurous and discreditable life. In December 1632, 
having joined a band of false coiners, he found himself 
once more a prisoner in the Chateau Trompette. His 
wife, moved to pity by his misfortunes, joined him in his 
captivity, and in 1634 a son was born, who was destined 
to be a thorn in the flesh to Madame de Maintenon in the 
days of her greatness. Constant was subsequently trans- 
ferred to Poitiers and finally to Niort, where Fran9oise 
was born and baptized into the Catholic faith, which was 
the religion of her mother. Soon afterwards Mme. 
d'Aubigne, tired of her ne'er-do-weel husband and anxious 
for the future of her children, left the prison and busied 
herself with lawsuits which had arisen over the will of 
Agrippa. Meanwhile, the infant Fran9oise was left in 
the charge of her paternal aunt, the Marquise de Villette, 
a convinced Huguenot, who took a great liking to her 
niece. 

In 1642, on the death of Eichelieu, Constant was 
released from prison, and, obtaining from the Compagnie 
des lies d'Amerique the governorship of Marie-Galande, 
he took his family thither overseas. His death in 1647 
brought them back to France, and they landed at La 
Eochelle in a penniless condition. Mme. d'Aubigne lived 
for a time on charity, but Fran9oise, then twelve years 
old, was once more received with open arms by her aunt 
de Villette. But her misfortunes were not over yet. 
Another aunt, Mme. de Neuillant, who was also her god- 

o 2 



196 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

mother, denounced to the queen-regent this abduction of 
a CathoHc lamb into the Huguenot fold, and Fran9oise, 
by a royal order, was taken away from her friends. Mme, 
de Neuillant, her new protectress, was rich, but hard and 
avaricious. Fran9oise, with a mask fixed on to her nose 
to preserve her face from sunburn, a book of devotions with 
passages marked to be learned by heart, and a willow- 
switch in her hand, was set to watch her aunt's turkeys 
and prevent them from straying. But, though indifferent 
to the physical well-being of her niece, Mme. de Neuillant 
was much troubled about her soul. Fran9oise, who had 
been brought up in the Pluguenot faith, refused to be con- 
verted, and was consequently sent to a convent of Ursu- 
lines, first at Niort and afterwards at Paris. From the 
latter place she wrote a pathetic appeal for help to her 
aunt de Villette. ' Madame and aunt, the memory of all 
the kindnesses which you showered on our poor abandoned 
selves makes me stretch my hands towards you and beg 
you to use your influence and your efforts to save me from 
this place where life is worse than death. Oh ! madame 
and aunt, you do not know what a hell this so-called house 
of God is to me. . . .' But, in face of the queen-regent's 
decision, Mme. de Villette could do nothing, and the 
struggle continued till a mistress more enlightened than 
the others tried a change of treatment. Fran9oise was 
allowed to attend or absent herself from religious services 
at pleasure, and a Huguenot minister was invited to the 
parlour to argue with a Catholic priest in her presence. 
To his eternal shame the minister was worsted, and 
Fran9oise d'Aubigne became a Eoman Catholic. 

When her conversion was complete, she rejoined her 
mother in Paris and shared with her a poor lodging in the 
Marais, where they lived with difficulty on an income of 
200 francs and the work of their hands. It was here, in 
a petticoat that was too short for her, that she first met 



MADAME DE MAINTENON 197 

the dramatist Scarron, who was contemplating a voyage 
to the Antilles for his health and who had called to seek 
advice from one who knew the islands. Scarron was 
charmed by the intelligence of the young girl and moved 
to a feeling of pity that was at least akin to love ; and 
when Mme. d'Aubigne died, with a generosity that did 
him infinite credit he offered either to marry Fran9oise or 
to pay for her support in a convent. Mme. de Neuillant, 
who was anxious to be rid once and for all of an un- 
welcome burden, decided in favour of matrimony ; and in 
1652 the future wife of Louis XIV, then sixteen years 
of age, was married to the forty-two-year-old and vale- 
tudinarian poet. 

Scarron — witty, careless, and good-natured— lived en 
pension in the Hotel de Troyes, and it was here that the 
young wife first became acquainted with the world of 
beaux esprits, in which she was destined to be a prominent 
figure. It was natural, but not wholly to her credit, that 
in the days of her prosperity she never alluded to this early 
benefactor ; indeed, she so far succeeded in blotting out 
the past from her memory that she could write in after 
years to her brother as one ' who had never been married ' ; 
and an unfortunate reminder from Bacine cost the poet 
the royal favour. Eacine, in his old age, was absent-minded 
and forgetful. ' One unlucky day, when he was in the 
presence of the king and Madame de Maintenon, the con- 
versation fell on the theatre, and Louis asked how it was 
that, according to common report, the modern stage had 
become degenerate. Eacine gave him several reasons, and 
concluded by saying that, in his opinion, the principal 
cause was to be found in the dearth of good authors and 
good plays, which compelled the managers to fall back 
upon old ones, like those of Scarron, which disgusted 
everybody. The widow blushed, the king became con- 
fused, and the sudden silence made the poet conscious of 



198 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

tlie pit into which he had fallen.' Madame de Maintenon, 
in spite of what Saint- Simon says, pardoned the lapse, but 
the king was less forgiving. 

In 1660, from a balcony in Paris, she watched the 
State entry of the king and Marie-Therese. ' Nothing so 
splendid could be imagined,' she wrote to Mme. de Villar- 
ceaux, ' and the queen must have gone to sleep to-night 
well satisfied with the husband she has chosen.' 

In the same year Scarron died. By his marriage 
contract he had settled 23,000 francs on his wife ; but he 
had muddled away his property. ' M. Scarron,' wrote the 
widow to her uncle the Marquis de Villette, ' has left me 
10,000 francs' worth of assets and 22,000 francs of 
debts. . . . That is the state of the property of the poor 
fellow, who always had some chimera in his head and who 
spent everything he could realise in the hope of finding 
the philosopher's stone or something equally probable.' 

A pension from the queen-regent of 2,000 francs, 
obtained through the influence of the Marechal de Villeroy, 
saved her from absolute penury, and, with her servant 
Nanon, she withdrew to humble lodgings in Paris, where, 
simply dressed and unashamed of her poverty, she lived a 
thrifty but not undignified life. 

The stories of improper liaisons with influential pro- 
tectors which are told of this period rest on the forged 
letters of Beaumelle, the assertions of her enemies, and a 
spurious letter of Ninon de I'Enclos. They are so entirely 
out of keeping with her character and with the rest of her 
life that they need a more solid foundation than scandalous 
gossip to make them credible. By all accounts, Mme. 
Scarron in her youth was a handsome woman, but the 
main secret of her charm lay in the mixture of simplicity 
and reserve which made her totally different from the 
ordinary young woman of fashion. She combined, too, 
with the demureness of the puritan a wit which made her 



MADAME DE MAINTENON 199 

a match for the most poHshed talkers of the day. The 
combination was original and piquant, and it is not sur- 
prising that the young widow, who was poor but inde- 
pendent and perfectly at her ease, devote but excellent 
company in a drawing-room or at a dinner-party, obliging 
but never cringing, became a welcome guest in some of 
the most select salons of Paris. She was perfectly able 
to take care of herself and fully alive to the unusual pre- 
cautions which her position required. Presents of any 
kind she invariably refused. ' My character in this respect,' 
she said afterwards in a lecture to her protSgees at Saint-Cyr, 
' was so well known that no man ever dared to offer me 
anything, except one who was a fool. I had a very pretty 
amber fan, and I had put it for a moment on a table by 
my side ; this man, either jokingly or on purpose, took up 
the fan and broke it in two. I was surprised and shocked, 
and extremely annoyed, for I was very fond of the fan. 
The next day this man sent me a dozen fans like the one 
he had broken. I sent him word that it wasn't worth 
while breaking mine in order to send me a dozen others, 
and that I should have been just as well pleased with 
thirteen as with twelve. I sent him back his present and 
remained f anless, and made such fun of him in public that 
nobody ventured afterwards to take similar liberties.' 

Her independent spirit is well illustrated by a letter 
she wrote in 1663 to the brother whose weak and inver- 
tebrate character was always to be a source of grief and 
annoyance to her. 

' I am extremely vexed with myself for having asked 
M. de Villette [a cousin] to receive you and put you up. I 
hear from thirty different sources that you have behaved 
shamefully and quarrelled with him after accepting all the 
services that one could expect from a dear brother. I 
confess that I am extremely vexed with you, and that your 
conduct has destroyed all the good opinion I had formed 



200 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

of you. You not only received from him all the necessary 
things, but you took what he didn't give, and you have 
accepted money to gamble with. I cannot understand 
how one can have the heart of a gentleman and behave 
like that. As I have told you a thousand times, it would 
be better to wear a threadbare coat and not to play than 
to secure the wherewithal by means so degrading as those 
of charity.' 

Amongst the friends of Scarron had been the Marechal 
d'Albret, and it was at the Hotel d'Albret that Madame de 
Montespan and Mme. Scarron first met. The two women 
were mutually attracted to each other. As yet, no breath 
of scandal had tarnished the reputation of the beautiful 
marquise. Indeed, talking of the frailty of Mme, de la 
Valliere, she had said, ' If I were so unfortunate as to have 
a similar thing happen to me, I should hide myself for the 
rest of my life' — a grim warning against the dangers of 
boastfulness. But the friendship was of the head rather 
than of the heart, and consequently survived the moral 
lapses of the favourite ; and the intellectual pleasure 
which Mme. Scarron derived from the conversation of the 
mistress proved stronger than her puritan disapproval of 
her conduct. The friendship had important results, for, 
in 1669, Mme. Scarron was asked to act as gouvernante 
to the illegitimate children which Madame de Montespan 
had borne to her royal lover. She had scruples at first ; 
but the king, to a good Frenchman or Frenchwoman, 
stood on a different plane from the ordinary mortal. Her 
confessor reassured her, and an interview with Louis 
decided the matter. The utmost secrecy was demanded 
and observed, and Mme. Scarron's life, for several years, 
was a hard one. The children were lodged in a small 
house outside Paris. Thither at nightfall the gouver- 
nante used to repair, in disguise and with a basket under 
her arm, to look after her charges : and sometimes she had 



MADAME DE MAINTENON 201 

to sit up all night tending some infant malady. * In the 
morning I went home, let myself in by a back door and, 
after dressing, drove to the Hotel d'Albret, or de Eichelieu, 
in order that my friends might not even suspect that I 
had a secret to keep.' 

In 1673 the king pubHcly recognised his bastards. The 
need for secrecy v^^as at an end, and Mme. Scarron's official 
position brought her into the public eye. Even before this 
she had been introduced to Versailles, where she had been 
well received and had enjoyed the honour of a place in 
one of the carriages that followed the royal promenade. 
' There were many courtiers round the carriage ; M. de 
Lauzun ' (then at the height of his favour) ' talked much 
with me ; and when we got down M. de Turenne continued 
the acquaintance which you [the Marechal d'Albret] have 
estabhshed between us.' The king was beginning to take 
notice of the intelligent but unobtrusive lady, who was so 
different from the women to whom he was accustomed, 
and there were many who envied her her favour ; but the 
ensuing years were years of anxiety and annoyance, which 
find vivid expression in the letters which Mme. Scarron 
wrote to her confessor, the Abbe Gobelin. Madame 
de Montespan was jealous of the increasing friendliness 
between the governess and the king, and her temper 
suffered. In 1674 she tried to get rid of her friend by 
marrying her to the aged Due de Villars, but the refusal 
of Mme. Scarron to entertain the idea frustrated the plan. 
' I am always sad,' wrote Mme. Scarron in the same year, 
' and things are taking a shape that doesn't please me.' 
And again, ' The coldness with which I am treated has 
increased since you left, and my friends, who have noticed 
it, have condoled with me on my disgrace. I spoke yester- 
day to Madame de Montespan about it, and told her that I 
hoped she and the king would not think that my low 
spirits were a sign of my being sulky with them. That 



202 THE GKEAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

the cause was more serious ; that I saw clearly that I had 
lost her favour, and that she had prejudiced the king 
against me,' In September : * Madame de Montespan and 
I had a heated conversation this morning, and as I am the 
victim I have been crjdng a good deal, and she has given 
her own account of the matter to the king. . . . She 
describes me to him as she pleases, and loses me his 
esteem. Consequently he considers me an eccentric crea- 
ture who has to be humoured. I dare not speak to the 
king directly because she would never forgive me ; and, if I 
did speak, my obligations to Madame de Montespan forbid 
me to say anything against her. So there is no remedy.' 
And in the February of the next year she writes : ' There 
have been terrible scenes between Madame de Montespan 
and myself, and yesterday the king was a witness of one 
of them. These quarrels are reducing me to such a state 
that I cannot endure it much longer.' 

To add to her troubles, the Due du Maine was ill and 
needed constant attention. ' It is always terrible,' she 
says, ' to see someone whom one loves suffering, and I feel 
with anguish that I love the child as much as I loved the 
other one.' ^ 

Under the circumstances Mme. Scarron determined to 
take her wages and withdraw from an impossible position. 
In the August of 1674 she wrote : ' I am firmly resolved 
to leave them at the end of the year.' A gift of 250,000 
francs, by no means an extravagant reward for her services 
according to the standards of her time, made it possible 
for her to realise her wishes. Maintenon,^ a property that 
brought in 10,000 to 11,000 francs a year, was bought 
with the money, and the new possession gave a fresh 
interest to life. For the first time in her chequered career 
the daughter of Constant d'Aubigne knew what it was to 
have a secure future and to enjoy affluence, if not wealth. 

' The first child of Madame de Montespan and the king : died in 1672. 
* Maintenon is S.W. of Versailles, about twelve miles short of Chartres. 



MADAME DE MAINTENON 203 

It is not surprising, therefore, that she was somewhat 
excited. ' I was more impatient,' she wrote to her con- 
fessor in January 1675, ' to tell you about Maintenon than 
you can be to hear. I was there for three days, which, 
without exaggeration, seemed like a moment. The house 
is a fine one, rather too big for the kind of life I contem- 
plate, but in an agreeable situation, and it has de fort 
beaux droits. In a word, I am much pleased with it and 
should like to be living there. It is true that the king 
has given me the name of Maintenon.' 

Full of her idea of retiring from the Court, Madame de 
Maintenon, as she now was called, drew up a routine for 
the new life which she was eager to begin, and submitted 
it to her confessor. 

' I should like to rise at seven in the summer and eight 
in the winter ; to spend an hour in prayer before sum- 
moning my maids ; then to dress, and while so engaged to 
see the tradesmen and others with whom I shall have 
business to transact ; and, after dressing, to go to church, 
and not return till dinner. 

' I should expect to go out about two days in the 
week, either for my pleasure or to pay necessary visits ; to 
sup with private friends on those days, but always to come 
away at ten. 

' Twice a week I should stay at home and entertain 
my private friends on those days, either at dinner or at 
supper, always withdrawing at ten to read prayers with 
my servants, and undressing and going to bed at eleven. 

' The three other days of the week I should assign — 
one to visiting the poor of my parish, one to visiting the 
hospital, and the third to visiting the prison ; and I should 
spend the evenings working or reading. 

* I should never see anybody on the eve or day of Com- 
munions ; never miss my private prayers ; dress modestly, 
and never wear gold or silver ; and give the tenth part of 
my income to the poor. 



204 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

* That is how I should Hke to begin, till religious zeal 
led me on to better things. I haven't spoken about 
keeping Sundays and fete-days holy, for I consider that 
one of the most elementary duties.' 

It must be remembered that these resolutions were not 
intended for public display but for the private eye of the 
confessor. They were made in all sincerity and bear the 
genuine puritan stamp. It was in some ways a misfortune 
that Madame de Maintenon was unable to carry them 
into effect. 

But new developments kept her at Court. The tem- 
porary rupture between the king and Madame de Monte- 
span, brought about by a direct appeal to his religious 
scruples, seems to have inspired her with the belief that 
Louis was a brand who might yet be plucked from the 
burning, and that she was the instrument designed by 
Providence to effect the rescue. 

Meanwhile, while Madame de Montespan was with- 
standing the assaults of Bossuet in Paris and the king was 
commanding his army in Flanders, Madame de Maintenon 
had taken the ailing Ducdu Maine to Bareges in the hope 
that he would benefit by the waters. The king had opened 
a correspondence with her, and no doubt she entertained 
him with vivacious descriptions of her journey. An 
extract from a letter she wrote to the Abbe Gobelin shows 
her in her lighter vein. 

' The almoner doesn't see me often, for he travels in 
the second carriage. But he gains by the separation, and 
I get much greater pleasure out of seeing him merry or 
sad, according as the inns are good or bad, than I should 
by penetrating more intimately into his sorrows. He is 
proud of himself for not succumbing to the fatigues of a 
journey which he is making in a comfortable carriage, 
three hours in the morning and three in the afternoon, 
with meals ready and awaiting his arrival wherever we 
stop. I hear Mass before we start in order to facilitate 



MADAME DE MAINTENON 205 

his breakfast, for he piques himself on having a warm 
blood and a ravenous stomach. I don't know what his 
stomach does, but I know that he is ravenous. A day or 
two ago his nose began to bleed while he was saying his 
private prayers, which gave him a great fright. You may 
judge from the length of my letter whether or no I am in 
a good temper.' 

The taste of the age required that nature should be 
improved by art, and in Bareges and the Pyrenees Madame 
de Maintenon only saw ' a place more hideous than I can 
describe ; and where, to crown our misfortunes, we are 
freezing. The society is poor, but in spite of it all I am 
in good health because I have fewer worries and vexations 
here than elsewhere.' But, if the place proved unattrac- 
tive, the object of the journey was secured. The Due du 
Maine, whom she describes as * delightful company,' though 
still slightly lame, was practically cured ; and in the 
autumn of 1675 Madame de Maintenon was able to take 
him home. On the journey back she found time to hunt 
up the tombs of the d'Aubignes of Anjou, an ancient 
family with which she was anxious to trace a connection. 
In November she reached Versailles, to find that the situa- 
tion had once more changed. The reconciliation of the 
king and his mistress was no doubt a keen disappoint- 
ment, and the hopes of reforming him were on the wane. 
In June 1676 she wrote to her confessor, ' I am on excel- 
lent terms with Madame de Montespan, and I seize the 
opportunity to impress on her that I intend to leave ; she 
scarcely replies to these proposals. We shall have to see 
what we are to do when she comes back from Bourbon. 
Pray God, I implore you, to direct and govern my designs 
for His glory and my own salvation.' 

Madame de Montespan's triumph was of short duration. 
She was slowly losing her hold on the king ; but she 
fought hard, and the varying phases of the struggle did 
not add to the peacefulness of Madame de Maintenon's life. 



206 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

' I cannot sacrifice for the whole of my life,' she wrote to 
the Abbe Gobelin, ' my independence, my health, and my 
soul. I am speaking sincerely ; however, the moment for 
changing has not come yet.' 

Maintenon was still a solace and a joy, although the 
number of visitors, which her growing prestige at Court 
attracted to the place, was a source of annoyance. In 1679 
she added to the estate the adjoining seigneurie of Pierre, 
and gave special instructions to her agent ' to take care of 
the inhabitants, who are in great want,' and to see that 
they were not allowed to die from cold or hunger during 
the frost which had set in. This same agent, or rather 
his sister, received shortly afterwards a sharp rap over the 
knuckles. Madame de Maintenon was determined to be 
mistress in her own house, and expected to have her in- 
structions literally carried out. 

*I told M. de Guignonville distinctly,' she wrote, 'not 
to have anything done to the square tower till I had dis- 
cussed the matter with him. His answer to this is that 
the workmen are in and that it will soon be finished. I 
told you to distribute fuel zoith the Cure of Pierre ; you 
do not say anything to him about it till it is all done. 
These ways do not suit me, and I am too old not to be 
mistress in my own house. M. de Guignonville and you 
were accustomed to treat the former chatelaine like a child. 
That is not my disposition. ... If you wish to continue 
to be employed in my affairs, big or little, you must, if 
you please, do exactly as I ask.' 

The pill is finally gilded over, not ungraciously. 

' You know how fond I am of both of you, and how 
pleased I am to be brought into such close relations with 
you. ... If you are content to serve me in my own way 
you will find that I am not ungrateful.' 

Among the minor worries that helped to harass 
Madame de Maintenon during these years, the conduct of 
her brother, who repudiated his debts and tried to play the 



MADAME DE MAINTENON 207 

grand seigneur, occupied an important place. Throngh 
his sister's influence Charles d'Aubigne had been appointed 
to the governorship of Cognac, a post worth 30,000 francs 
a year. For a long time (he was now forty-four years old) 
she had wished to see him married, and had several times, 
though without success, entered upon negotiations with 
that object. Charles, who was a weak and indolent man, 
owed everything to his sister ; but perhaps she held the 
reins too tightly. Few men like to feel that they are 
being driven in blinkers, and in 1678 Charles took the bit 
between his teeth and, without a word to his sister, married 
the daughter of a doctor, a foolish little hourgeoise who 
was fifteen years old. Madame de Maintenon was keenly 
disappointed, but with characteristic good sense, instead 
of wasting ink in useless reproaches, she set to work to 
make the best of a bad bargain, and offered to educate the 
young wife and fit her for her new position. The newly 
married couple came to Paris, and, after seeing the bride, 
Madame de Maintenon bombarded the husband with good 
advice. 

' I hope that you haven't married merely for the sake 
of marrying, and that you will try to make of your wife 
a sensible person. . . . Don't prevent her from leading a 
regular life ; don't let her get up late or go out alone, but 
don't let her play the great lady. Put her in surroundings 
which will not humiliate her, but which also will avoid the 
ridicule you will both incur if you try to live above your 
station. ... It is quite right that she should dress well ; 
she is of an age when she can wear greens and reds, and 
she ought not to be untidy ; but don't let her spend two 
or three hours every morning in front of her looking- 
glass. ... I think, at present, you would do well to give 
her an allowance and let her dress herself. She has no 
idea of expense, but she would learn how to manage, 
and would see that when she has given too much for a 
skirt she will have nothing for shoes or ribbons. If she 



208 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

had not had a completely new outfit I should advise you 
to give her 1,000 francs a year ; but as she is provided for 
for six months, I think 850 francs vs^ill be enough ; and 
you and I can always give her a little present. ... If you 
want to live happily with your wife you must not always 
be together, or you will grow tired of each other. . . . 
Don't let her be much with Mme. de Fontmort : she will 
turn her head, talk of nothing but the Court, and pity her 
for not being a dame dii palais. Don't let her dress or 
undress in the presence of men. . . . Don't shock her by 
coarse language. . . . Don't talk to her about your suc- 
cesses with ladies or about your courage. The other day, 
in the few moments she was with us, she told us how you 
were going to fight the English, in the most ridiculous 
fashion. . . . You will think it strange of me to enter into 
such details, but experience has taught me that people are 
often made unhappy by trifles which, recurring every day, 
end in great aversions. I want you to be happy, and. 
there is nothing I would not do to contribute to it.' 

By way of a practical contribution, Madame de Mainte- 
non drew up an estimate of what the expenses of the new 
menage ought to be, entering into the minutest details. 

'Daily expenditure for a family of twelve people 
(monsieur and madame, three maids, four lackeys, two 
coachmen, and one valet de chambre) : — 

fr. cents. ' 

Fifteen lbs. of meat a day at 25 centimes the lb. . 3 75 

Two roasts {i.e. fowls) 2 50 

Bread 1 50 

Wine 2 50 

Wood 2 

Fruit 1 50 

Tallow candles 40 

Wax „ 50 

14 65 

The original sums are calculated in sous ; I have changed them, for 
convenience sake, into the modern francs and centimes. It must be 
remembered that the purchasing power of 1 fr. at this period was equal to 
about 5 fr. to-day. 



MADAME DE MAINTENON 209 

' That isroughly your expenditure, which ought not to 
exceed 15 francs a day, or 600 francs a month. You see 
I allow an extra 100 francs a month, but with washing, 
torches, salt, vinegar, verjuice, spices and etceteras, it will 
come to that. I allow 20 centimes' worth of wine a day 
for your four lackeys and two coachmen; Madame de 
Montespan allows that to hers, and if you had wine in 
your cellars it wouldn't cost so much. I allow a pound 
of tallow candles a day ; there are eight in the pound — 
one for the antechamber, one for the maids, one for the 
kitchen, and one for the stables ; I can only think of 
those four places, but as the days are short I allow eight, 
and if Aimee is economical and knows how to use the 
ends you can save 1 lb. a week. I allow 40 lbs. of wood, 
which you will only use for two or three months in the 
year. You only need two fires, but let your own be a 
big one. I allow 50 centimes for wax candles : there are 
six to the pound, which should last you three days. I 
allow 1 franc 60 for fruit ; sugar only costs 55 centimes 
the pound and you only need a "quartern" for one com- 
pote. ... At dinner you will have a good soup with a 
fowl ; you must have all the broth brought you in a big 
dish ; it is excellent in that unconventional way. Without 
exceeding the 15 francs a day you can have an entree of 
sausages one day, of veal another, of sheep's tongues a 
third ; and for supper a leg or shoulder of mutton with 
two good chickens, besides the eternal jpyramide and the 
co7npote. 

' Altogether your food ought not to cost you more than 
6,000 francs a year. I allow 1,000 francs for Mme. 
d'Aubigne's dress, 1,000 for wages and liveries, 1,000 for 
rent, and 3,000 for your own dress, opera, and other 
expenses. 

' As I hope that we are going to live near one another 
for some time, teach Mme. d'Aubigne and her maids to 

P 



210 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

know my ways — that is to say that, though I am glad to 
lend, I don't like to have my things spoiled or broken. I 
have told Nanon to make an inventory of everything, from 
the velvet bed to the pot-hook. Legois tells me that 
you have been buying table-linen ; have it marked, and 
see that it isn't changed in the wash. You must talk 
about all these things in the presence of your wife ; she 
has a look of helplessness which I should like to see 
disappear.' 

In spite, however, of good advice, repeated on many 
occasions, the marriage proved a failure. Mme. d'Aubigne 
was too foolish a woman to profit by the instructions of 
her sister-in-law, and Charles too worthless a fellow to 
take much interest in his wife. He soon grew tired of 
her, and they separated. One child was born of the 
marriage, the pretty little girl who figures with her aunt 
in Ferdinand d'Elle's picture at Versailles. Madame de 
Maintenon adopted her, and married her to the Comte 
d'Ayen, afterwards Due de Noailles. 

In January 1680 Madame de Maintenon was appointed 
dame d'atour to the Dauphine. Her acceptance of the new 
position marked her growing influence over the king 
and her definite abandonment of all idea of withdrawing 
from the Court. It also put an end to the * scenes ' with 
Madame de Montespan. There was no open breach, and 
the two ladies still met occasionally ; but there was little 
cordiality in their mutual greetings, especially on Madame 
de Montespan's side. At the beginning of every month 
Madame de Maintenon used to hold in her apartment what 
she called an assemblee des pauvres, a charitable ' at home ' 
to which the Court ladies brought their contributions. 
Madame de Montespan, entering the room on one of these 
occasions, remarked with intentional irony to her hostess, 
' SaveZ'Vous, Madame, comme voire chambre est merveil- 
leusement paree pour voire oraison funebre ! ' Madame 



MADAME DE MAINTENON 211 

de Maintenon, who was never proof against wit that was 
unspoiled by coarseness, laughed heartily at this sally. 

The Dauphine, prejudiced by Mme. de Richelieu, who 
had protected Mme. Scarron but disliked Madame de 
Maintenon, did not take kindly to the dame d'atour. 
'The Dauphine,' she writes in 1681, 'leads us a melan- 
choly life. . . . Mme. de Montchevreuil and I don't 
appear to be in favour ' ; but the open affection of the 
king, which was to be crowned at the beginning of 1684 
by the secret marriage at Versailles, made her independent 
of the Dauphine's likes or dislikes. In marrying Louis, 
Madame de Maintenon performed what she believed to 
be a duty. It is improbable that she ever had any real 
affection for him as a man. His want of flexibility, his 
punctiliousness, and, it must be added, his obtuseness, 
made him a wearing companion for everyday life. But 
his conversion, as king, was a signal service to the cause 
of morality and religion, and Madame de Maintenon 
regarded herself as chosen by Providence to accomplish 
the miracle. There is no reason to suppose that she ever 
regretted the step ; but there is equally little reason for 
believing Saint- Simon's sensational story that she was 
bent on having the marriage declared, and that this 
catastrophe was only averted at the eleventh hour by 
Louvois, who clung to the king's knees till he had extracted 
a recantation. The only evidence adduced in support of 
the story is the gossip of a lackey who was supposed to 
have overheard a conversation which took place on the 
other side of a closed door. Madame de Maintenon had 
many faults, but she was entirely free from the kind of 
ambition which appealed most to her contemporaries. 
Her letters to her brother are full of entreaties that he will 
not let his head be turned, or pose as a great nobleman. 
She provided for him suitably, but she never procured him 
any title. For rank she had an instinctive reverence, 

p 2 



212 THE GEE AT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

regarding it, as she did, as a divine institution ; but, to her 
mind, it was the duty of everyone to be content with the 
particular place in the hierarchy into which he or she had 
been born, and it was as absurd for a d'Aubigne to ape the 
ways and manners of a duchess as it was for a bourgeoisa to 
ape those of a d'Aubigne. ' If I had fifty thousand francs 
a year,' she had said to her brother at a time when she 
might have been duchess had she wished it, ' I should not 
adopt the style of a grande dame or have a valet de 
chambre, like Mme. de Coulanges ; nor a bed draped with 
gold.' And when, at the death of the Duchesse de 
Eichelieu, she was offered the superior post of dame 
d'honneur to the Dauphine, she refused it as being too 
exalted for her rank. Her life in the small apartment 
which she occupied at Versailles, after her marriage, was 
simpler and far less luxurious than that of many a bour- 
geoise in Paris. Nanon, the servant and faithful com- 
panion of her penurious widowhood in Paris, kept watch 
and ward over her mistress, as simply dressed as in the 
days of their poverty. The rest of her household consis- 
ted of a cook, a maitre d'hotel, and several valets. A 
pension of 4,000 francs a month,^ paid out of the king's 
private purse, sufficed for her personal wants. In addition, 
she possessed a carriage, and one of the royal coachmen 
was assigned to it. No member of his family ever cost 
Louis less, and for anything like state or show she had an 
instinctive aversion ; nature and the straitened circum- 
stances of her youth had made her thrifty, and the royal 
extravagance, if she could not prevent it, at least received 
no encouragement from her. ' Marly,' she wrote in 1698 
to Cardinal de Noailles, ' will soon be a second Versailles- 
One can do nothing but suffer and pray. But what will 
become of the poor people ? ' And it was, perhaps, her 

' At the death of Louis XIV this pension was continued by the Eegent ; 
it was charged on the man who had the monopoly of tobacco. 



MADAME DE MAINTENON 213 

consciousness of the disastrous results of the king's pro- 
digality which determined her never to become, in her 
own person, a burden to the country. But, if she was 
to carry on her work of saving the king and continue 
the intimate relations which were necessary for the accom- 
plishment of the task, marriage, after the death of Marie- 
Therese, became necessary. It was the only way of regu- 
larising her position and satisfying her conscience. There 
is no reason to suppose that she ever regarded it in any 
other light, or wished for an official recognition which 
would have imposed on her the public duties that were 
most distasteful to her and have cut her off from the 
occupations which were the chief interest of her life. 

For her own part, she kept the secret well ; but her 
confessor, naturally, had to be taken into her confidence, 
and the simple man was dazzled. In 1686 Madame de 
Maintenon had to write to him sharply. ' I implore you 
to abandon a style you have adopted towards me, which 
does not please me and may do me harm. I am no more 
a great la^dj than I was in the Kue des Tournelles, when 
you used to tell me the truth about myself so frankly ; 
and, if the favour I enjoy puts everybody at my feet, it 
ought not to have the same effect on a man who has charge 
of my conscience. . . , "Where shall I find the truth if 
not in you ? and to whom can I be humble if not to you, 
when I find in all who approach me nothing but respect, 
flattery, and complaisance ? Speak to me and write to me 
without ambiguities, without ceremony, and, above all, 
without respect. Don't be afraid of offending me ; I wish 
to save my soul, and I recognise that nobody has greater 
need of help than I.' 

The king was careful to emphasise the peculiar rela- 
tions that existed between himself and his wife. Plain 
Madame de Maintenon in public, in private — or what the 
king chose to regard as private— she was treated with all 



214 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

the deference due to a queen. At Marly, when she could 
be persuaded to join the royal walk in her sedan chair, 
she was the object of a more ceremonious politeness than 
Marie-Therese had ever enjoyed. * The king would walk 
beside her chair on foot. Every other moment he 
would take off his hat, and stoop to say something to 
her or to reply if she spoke, which she did less often 
than he ; for he had always something to say or some 
object to which he wished to direct her attention.' 
Madame de Maintenon, who was probably horribly bored 
by the whole proceeding, kept the windows of her sedan- 
chair closed, for she had a great terror of fresh air * even 
in the finest and calmest weather ' ; but, when the king 
stooped to speak, she would open the window two or 
three inches, and shut it again as soon as the king had 
finished his remarks. Sometimes her chair would be 
deposited on the ground in order that she might con- 
template some new fountain or statue, which, consider- 
ing her disapproval of the royal extravagance at Marly, 
was not likely to afford her a very lively satisfaction. 
*At the end of the walk the king would escort her to 
the chateau, take leave of her, and return alone to the 
gardens.' ^ 

To what extent Madame de Maintenon should be 
held responsible for the Eevocation of the Edict of Nantes 
is difficult to determine. That she approved of it in 
principle there can be no doubt. To M. de Villette she 
had written in 1681, ' If God preserves the king, in 
twenty years there will not be a Huguenot in the kingdom.' 
Probably she shared the official belief that Calvinism 
was abdicating ; probably, too, she never realised by what 
methods the conversions that she welcomed were secured. 
It is certain that the means employed were entirely at 
variance with her normal instincts and with the principles 
' Saint-Simon. 



MADAME DE MAINTENON 215 

which consciously guided nine-tenths of her ordinary- 
actions. To her brother, when he was governor of Amers- 
fort in 1672, she had written : * I recommend the Catholics 
to your care and beg you not to be cruel to the Huguenots. 
We ought to draw people to us by kindness. Jesus 
Christ has set us the example.' In her dealing with the 
young, too, she owed her remarkable success to her per- 
ception of the truth that force is no remedy, and that 
obedience is best won by kindness. It is impossible to 
reconcile her attitude towards the Huguenots with her 
settled convictions ; but others besides Madame de Main- 
tenon have held sound principles on general issues and 
sacrificed them, almost unconsciously, on particular occa- 
sions, when a great prize seemed to be within their grasp. 
Moreover, she combined in her character several mutually 
antagonistic qualities which she found it difficult to recon- 
cile in practice. Intercourse with clever people had 
widened her outlook and sharpened the mordant and 
ironical wit which was her chief intellectual gift. On 
the other hand, with her puritan blood she had inherited 
a good deal of the puritan intolerance. Common sense 
and bigotry were continually at war for the possession of 
her soul, and common sense was not always victorious. 
It is characteristic of unimaginative people (and Madame 
de Maintenon was one of them) that, though they may 
love justice and mercy in the abstract, they are capable of 
cruelty on a big scale ; not because they are indifferent to 
suffering, but because in large questions of policy they do 
not think in flesh and blood, and are only moved to pity 
by what they can see with their own eyes. 

Nor, apparently, did she ever experience any feelings 
of remorse for what had been done ; for when, in 1697, 
a memorandum was submitted to her proposing the recall 
of the exiled Huguenots under specified conditions, she 
replied with a decided negative and supported her refusal 



216 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

by arguments which are as detailed as they are uncon- 
vincing. 

Her own family, who, with the exception of her 
brother, were Protestants, had also to suffer from the 
same proselytising zeal. In 1680, as soon as her credit 
was firmly established, Madame de Maintenon determined 
to bring the wandering lambs back to the true fold. The 
young cousins were either voluntarily surrendered or for- 
cibly abducted, distributed in convents, coaxed, petted, and 
converted. A few of them made some show of resistance ; 
but the prospect of worldly advantages outweighed religious 
scruples, and neither they nor their parents afterwards 
bore any grudge against their powerful relative for the 
drastic way in which she had consulted what she believed 
to be their interests, temporal and spiritual. 

If Madame de Maintenon's interference in matters of 
conscience was high-handed and arbitrary, her educational 
efforts were more worthy of respect. She had a passion 
for managing the affairs of others, whether they were 
those of her brother or of a peasant on her estate ; but her 
special and peculiar hobby was the education of the young. 
' Whenever you are kind enough to praise me for my skill 
in educating children,' she wrote to Mme. des Ursins, 'I 
shall swallow the praise greedily, for I really believe that 
I do know a good deal about the subject.' With a vivid 
recollection of the hardships and trials of her youth, 
Madame de Maintenon was eager to do something for the 
needy daughters of her own class. At Saint-Cyr she was 
able to realise her ambition. This institution, begun in 
1685 and completed in 1686, and situated within a few 
miles of Versailles, may be regarded as the wedding 
present of Louis XIV to his wife. It cost in all 1,400,000 
francs ; a large sum — but the Montespan's villa of Clagny 
had swallowed up more than two millions, and Madame 
de Maintenon may well have considered that the charitable 



MADAME DE MAINTENON 217 

object of Saint-Cyr justified the expense. Two hundred 
and fifty girls, drawn from the petite noblesse and divided 
into four classes, the blues, the yellows, the greens, and 
the reds, here received their education free. The aim of 
the institution was to turn out, not nuns, but wives and 
mothers who would carry into their provincial homes sound 
principles of conduct suited to their condition of life. The 
polish of the cultured salons and the grand manners of the 
Court would be quite out of place in girls who were one 
day ' to live in the heart of the country, to see if the cattle, 
the turkeys and the fowls were properly tended, and 
sometimes to lend a hand themselves.' Humility and 
simplicity were therefore to be the distinguishing virtues 
of the place, and religion the beginning and end of know- 
ledge. But it was to be a reasonable, practical religion, 
and not the religion of the convents. For the prudishness 
that refused to utter the word ' trousers ' and blushed at 
the inclusion of * marriage ' amongst the sacraments, 
Madame de Maintenon had a healthy contempt. ' Most 
Christians,' she wrote to a former pupil who had become 
Prioress at a teaching convent, ' make piety consist in 
externals, confessions, occasional Communions, long hours 
in church, the observance of feasts and fasts ; but in 
everything else there is forgetfulness of God, anger, 
hatred, vengeance, lies, avarice, &c. . . . Teach your 
children the duties of religion. Most people are content 
if they know the Commandments by heart without under- 
standing the duties that are enjoined. They know, " Thou 
shalt have none other gods but me," and then worship the 
Virgin. They say, " Thou shall not steal," and maintain 
that there is no harm in robbing the king.' And again : 
* If, when a girl leaves the convent, she says that nothing 
in the world will excuse her missing vespers, people will 
laugh at her; if she says that a wife does better to 
educate her children and instruct her servants than to pass 



218 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

her mornings in church . . . she will make her religion 
loved and respected.' 

Equally wise were her instructions to the dames de 
Saint-Louis who had charge of the girls at Saint-Cyr. 
' Don't make favourites,' she says to one ; * favouritism 
would ruin your pupils and yourself.' To another, who 
was mistress of the rouges, or youngest girls, she writes : 
'you speak to your children too unsympathetically and 
with a vexation and brusquerie which will shut you out 
of their hearts. . . . You must win them by adaptability, 
encourage them, praise them ; in a word, you must employ 
every means except roughness, which never leads anybody 
to God.' 

All this was admirably sensible. Unfortunately, the 
practical results were spoiled by a want of imagination in 
the foundress and a bigotry which, in spite of her better 
judgment, sometimes took the reins. Madame de Main- 
tenon had a sound view of what religion should mean to 
her girls, but she tried to build it up on too narrow a 
foundation. The * Imitation,' the * Confessions of St. 
Augustine,' and the works of St. Fran9ois de Sales, even 
when supplemented by Lives of Esther, David, and 
Solomon, are arid food for young minds, when they are 
the only food. And nothing secular was allowed at Saint- 
Cyr ; there was no appeal to nature, to art, to literature ; no 
attempt to fortify the spiritual life by healthy intellectual 
interests. Madame de Maintenon liked clever people ; but 
she was always haunted by the idea that cleverness was 
wicked, and she was afraid of cultivating the minds of her 
pupils for fear of corrupting their hearts. Perhaps she 
was unduly terrified by the results of her one attempt to 
provide mental stimulus. At her request Eacine had written 
' Esther,' a drama in which the beauties of style were not 
contaminated by any association with worldly ideas, and 
in 1689 the play was produced by the young ladies of 



MADAME DE MAINTENON 219 

Saint-Cyr before a small but select audience. The girls 
were terribly nervous ; some of them repeated the Veni 
Creator in the wings as a preventive against stage fright, 
but the performance was an unqualified success. The 
king was delighted ; he insisted on frequent repetitions, 
and brought in turn all the distinguished people at Court 
to see the show. 

But royal caresses do not foster humility, and 
theatricals, even when limited to Scriptural subjects, have 
a way of exciting interests that are not wholly spiritual. 
In 1691 Madame de Maintenon was in despair. ' The 
anxiety I feel about the girls at Saint-Cyr,' she wrote, 
' can only be repaired by time and a complete change in 
the education which we are giving them. ... I have 
been building on sand. ... I wanted to give the girls 
polish, to elevate their hearts and form their reasons. . . . 
I have succeeded . . . and they have become more proud 
and haughty than would be becoming in great princesses. 
They have been too much pampered, caressed, and 
petted. ... I do not want to see them humiliated, for the 
fault is mainly ours. I only want to repair by a different 
treatment the harm I have done. . . . Everything at 
Saint-Cyr is becoming a matter of words ; we often talk 
about simplicity, try to define it, to understand it, and 
distinguish what is simple from what is not. Then in 
practice they amuse themselves by saying, " Through sim- 
plicity I shall take the best place ; through simplicity I 
am going to praise myself ; through simplicity I want 
what is furthest from me on the table. ..." We must 
rid our girls of this mocking spirit, which they have 
learned from me, and which I now know to be absolutely 
opposed to simplicity. . . . Don't let us preach at them, 
but let us try the effect of silence.' 

In spite of its occasional worries, Saint-Cyr became 
the chief and most absorbing interest of Madame de 



220 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

Maintenon's life. Thither she escaped whenever she could 
be spared from the tedium of Versailles — sometimes as 
early as seven on a winter morning. There, too, she 
lectured informally to the various classes, or satisfied 
discreetly the curiosity of the dames de St. Louis about 
the Court and the royal family. 

But it was in connection with Saint-Cyr that she 
experienced one of the greatest frights of her life. About 
1689 she had come under the spell of the Abbe Fenelon, 
who had just been appointed tutor to the Duke of Bur- 
gundy. His saintly life and practical wisdom blinded her 
for a time to the vein of mysticism which ran through his 
character, and which was entirely alien to her own matter 
of fact views on life and religion. He was encouraged to 
come frequently to Saint-Cyr ; his advice was sought on 
all occasions, and his letters were copied out for the benefit 
of the dames de St. Louis ; indeed, Madame deMaintenon 
was within an ace of making him her ' director,' when the 
growing infirmities of the Abbe Gobelin forced her to look 
out for a successor. Through Fenelon's influence, a 
certain Mme. de Maisonfort had become a da7ne de St. 
Louis, and her friend Mme. Guyon a constant visitor at 
Saint-Cyr. This Mme. Guyon, authoress of ' Le Moyen 
court et facile de /aire I'Oraison' and * L'Exposition 
du C antique des C antiques,' was a woman of great per- 
sonal charm, but at the same time a somewhat hysterical 
mystic whose doctrines were influenced by the heresy of 
' Quietism,' of which Fenelon himself became suspected 
afterwards. She soon became a power at Saint-Cyr, and her 
doctrines a disturbing influence. * Pure love ' and ' self- 
annihilation ' are ennobling ideas, but long hours of ecstatic 
contemplation lead, in practice, to idleness and the neg- 
lect of daily duties. Mme. Guyon, too, had trances, in 
which she became so ' filled with grace ' that on two 
occasions her corset broke ; and the example became con- 



MADAME DE MAINTENON 221 

tagious. In 1694 Godet des Marais, Bishop of Chartres, 
who had become confessor to Madame de Maintenon and 
director of Saint-Cyr, sounded a note of warning, and the 
works of Mme. Guyon were submitted to the Bishop of 
Chalons, one' of the Noailles, afterwards Cardinal and 
Archbishop of Paris. The result was that Mme. Guyon 
was driven from Saint-Cyr and became the centre of a 
violent theological dispute. Bossuet took the field against 
her and Fenelon espoused her cause. In 1695, partly in 
the hope of hushing the matter up, and partly with a 
desire to remove him to a distance, Madame de Main- 
tenon suggested Fenelon's elevation to the vacant see of 
Cambrai ; and Louis, who had not yet realised how deeply 
the abbe was implicated in the affaire Guijon, ratified the 
appointment. 

But in 1697 the publication of the ' Maxwies des 
Saints ' produced a storm. Fenelon was forbidden to leave 
his diocese, the work was condemned at Eome, and Madame 
de Maintenon became seriously alarmed. Fenelon's ap- 
pointment to Cambrai had been chiefly her doing, and 
his intimate friends at Court, the families of Beauvillier 
and Chevreuse, had been her chosen companions too. 
Moreover, Saint-Cyr had attained an uneviable notoriety 
as a stronghold of the pernicious doctrines. The danger 
was aggravated by the fact that, in religious matters, she 
did not always see eye to eye with the king. Louis had 
a Jesuit confessor and insisted on his children's having one 
also. Madame de Maintenon, on the other hand, refused 
to follow the royal example. She was determined that 
her spiritual adviser should never become her spiritual 
master, and she had little sympathy with the Order, whose 
arbitrary ways she detested. Nor did she always conceal 
her contempt for the king's confessor, Pere la Chaise, * un 
hon homme sans esprit,' who, in her opinion, in his recom- 
mendations to vacant sees, attached too much weight to 



222 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

political considerations and too little to personal merit. 
There were angry scenes, and Madame de Maintenon's 
alarm is evidenced by the promptness with which she 
sacrificed her own friends at Court and the adherents of 
JFenelon at Saint-Cyr. Beauvillier and Chevreuse ceased 
to be her intimates ; Mme. de Maisonfort and two other 
dames de St. Louis were expelled from Saint-Cyr, and the 
place was thoroughly purged. At last the storm blew over 
and the king was appeased. The review at Compiegne, in 
1698, was the outward and visible sign of the reconcilia- 
tion ; and Madame de Maintenon, bored to death and 
harassed by draughts, received in the presence of the army 
and of the Court the honours due to a queen. But the 
memory of those anxious days was not soon forgotten, and 
when a few years afterwards her other favourite eccle- 
siastic, Cardinal de Noailles, whom she had made Arch- 
bishop of Paris, lost the king's favour on account of his 
dislike of the Jesuits and his suspected leanings towards 
Jansenism, she wrote ' It is my fate to be killed by the 
bishops.' 

In 1703 the death of her brother, though it revived for 
a moment poignant recollections of early days, relieved 
her from a constant source of anxiety. For many years 
Charles d'Aubigne had been leading a worthless and 
dissipated life in Paris. His open gibes at the ' beau frere ' 
and at his sister's piety were wanting alike in taste and 
dignity ; and his misconduct did not stop at words. In 
1700, a propos of a child he had had by a certain Mme. de 
la Brosse, Madame de Maintenon had written to the Arch- 
bishop of Paris : ' Do what you can to secure the com- 
plete surrender of little Charlotte ... it is the only way 
of saving her from the knowledge of her father and mother, 
with whom she will be trained to vice. ... I will put 
her in a convent in the country. I will take charge of 
her as long as I am alive, and will commend her to my 



MADAME DE MAINTENON 223 

niece when I die. . . . M. d'Aubigne has already made 
me similar presents. . . . All means are good provided we 
can save the poor little thing.' In his last years Charles 
had been persuaded to submit to a kind of semi-confine- 
ment at Saint- Sulpice, where, in a home for decayed noble- 
men, his movements had been dogged by a priest to whom 
was assigned the difficult task of keeping the old roue 
from wandering out of the straight path. But he fre- 
quently eluded the vigilance of his custode, and the hopes 
of reform proved illusory. However, he made an edifying 
end. 

' I have wept for M. d'Aubigne,' wrote Madame de 
Maintenon. ' He was my brother, and he loved me. He 
was good at bottom, but his life was so ill-regulated that 
I can say he gave me little joy except in the manner of his 
death. . . . He spoke in the most edifying terms and the 
words came from his heart. You know that he was not 
an eloquent speaker.' 

Very different was Madame de Maintenon's life at 
Versailles from the simple programme she had sketched 
for herself in the days when she had looked forward to a 
peaceful old age at Maintenon. The insipid chatter of 
the Court wearied her. ' I am writing,' she says to the 
Comte d'Ayen, husband of her niece, in 1701, ' in a brief 
interval of leisure. Mme. de Dangeau is coming to dine 
with me, and perhaps Mme. d'Heudicourt. Monsieur will 
be a spectator, and will want a reason for what we eat and 
what we refuse, and I shall grow impatient. The prin- 
cesses, who haven't gone hunting, will come in with their 
' gang ' and wait in my room till the king comes home 
for dinner. The huntsmen will return in a body and tell 
us, all at once, the most trivial details of the hunt.' And 
again, ' the talk about peas goes on the same as ever. The 
longing to eat them, the pleasure of having eaten them, 
and the joy of hoping to be able to eat some more, are the 



224 THE GEEAT DAYS OF VEESAILLES 

three topics that I have heard discussed for the last four 
days. Some ladies, after supping with the king, and 
supping well, have peas waiting for them at home when 
they return, and eat them before going to bed.' 

Age and infirmity were beginning to tell on her. In 
1 706 she wrote : ' I have lost my health, and for four years 
I have had a chronic fever. It has weakened me to such 
an extent that I can hardly write with my own hand now, 
and have to employ a secretary.' It needed a robust health 
and an imperturbable temper to support the fatigues of the 
existence to which Madame de Maintenon was condemned. 
She once described her daily life to Mme. de Glapion 
at Saint-Cyr : — 'People begin to come into my room 
at 7.30. First it is M. Marechal, and, as soon as he has 
gone, M. Fagon enters. He is followed by M. Bloin, or 
somebody else, who is sent to inquire after my health. I 
sometimes have urgent letters to write, which I am obliged 
to put in then. Next come the people of importance, 
M. Chamillart one day, the Archbishop another ; to-day it 
is a general who is starting to join his army, to-morrow 
an audience that I have to give. The other day the Due 
du Maine was waiting in my ante-chamber till M. 
Chamillart had finished, and, as soon as the minister had 
gone, the duke came in and stayed till the king's arrival. 
When the king comes they all have to go, and he remains 
with me till Mass-time. Observe that all this time I am 
not yet dressed. If I were, I should not have had time to 
say my prayers. So I still have my coiffure de nuit ; and 
yet my room is like a church ; there is a regular proces- 
sion through it, and an eternal coming and going. 

' When the king has heard Mass he comes back to my 
room. Then the Duchess of Burgundy enters with a 
number of ladies, and stays till I dine. ... At dinner I 
am surrounded by a circle of ladies so that I cannot even 
ask for something to drink ; I tell them sometimes that 



MADAME DE MAINTENON 225 

their presence is a great honour but that I would rather 
have a valet. At last they go off to their own dinners, for 
I have mine at twelve with Mme. d'Heudicourt and Mme. 
de Dangeau, who are invalids. So at last I am alone with 
them. But usually Monseigneur chooses this particular 
moment to call ; one day because he isn't dining at all, or 
another because he has dined early in order to hunt. He 
is the most difficult man in the world to entertain because 
he doesn't say a word ; however, I have to try, because 
he is my guest . . . but it is not very lively. By this 
time the others have finished dinner. The king, with all 
the princesses and the royal family, comes into my room, 
and they make it intolerably warm. We chat, and the 
king stays for about half an hour. Then he goes ; but 
only he. All the others stay, and, as he is no longer there, 
they draw round me and I have to listen to the latest 

witticisms of the Marechal C , the hon mot of X , 

and the story about Z . After a while they go off to 

their own rooms ; and do you know what happens then ? 
One or other of them always stays behind to talk to me 
in private. She takes me by the hand and leads me into 
my petite chamhre to tell me something disagreeable or 
dull ; for, as you may imagine, it isn't my business that 
they want to talk about but the affairs of their own 
family. . . . When the king returns from the hunt he 
comes to my room. The door is closed and nobody else 
is allowed to enter. So I am alone with him, and have 
to listen to his worries, if he has any, his gloomy fore- 
bodings, and his vaj)eurs. He has no conversation. Then 
some minister comes. If they want my advice they call 
for me. If not, I withdraw to a little distance ; and that 
is when I say my afternoon prayers. While the king is 
still working I have my supper ; but not once in two 
months can I enjoy it at my leisure. I know that the 
king is alone, that I have left him sad, or else, when he 



226 THE GEEAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

has nearly finished with M. Chamillart, he asks me to 
make haste ... so that I am always in a hurry and have 
to eat quickly. I have my fruit put on with the meat 
to save time. I leave Mme. d'Heudicourt and Mme. 
de Dangeau at table, because they can't swallow their food 
as quickly as I do ; and I often suffer in consequence. 

* After that, as you may imagine, it is late ; I have been 
up since six in the morning, and I haven't had time to 
breathe the whole day. I feel exhausted ; I have yawning 
fits, and begin to realise what age means. At last I get 
so tired that I can hold out no longer. The king per- 
ceives it, and says sometimes, " You are very tired, aren't 
you? You ought to go to bed." So I go to bed (behind 
a screen, in the same room) ; my maids undress me ; but 
I know that the king is waiting to say something ; or else 
that there is some minister present and that he is afraid 
of being overheard by the maids. So I make haste ; such 
haste that I am often out of breath ; and all my life I 
have hated being hurried. ... At last I am in bed, and 
send away my maids. The king comes to my bedside and 
stays there. Although I am in bed, there are many 
things I want — the sheets warmed, for instance ; but I 
have nobody I can ask to do it for me. Not that I 
couldn't have a maid, for the king is kindness itself, and, 
if he thought I wanted one, he would allow me ten as 
soon as one ; but he doesn't realise that I am uncom- 
fortable. As he is always his own master everywhere and 
does what he likes, he thinks that other people are like 
him ; and if I don't have a maid he supposes that I 
don't want one. He stays with me till he goes to supper, 
and about a quarter of an hour earlier the Dauphin and 
the Duke and Duchess of Burgundy come to say good- 
night. At ten, or a quarter past, everybody leaves me, 
and I take the remedies I require ; but often the anxieties 
and fatigues of the day prevent me from sleeping.' 



MADAME DE MAINTENON 227 

Nor was Marly much of a relief ; for, though the 
official routine was relaxed, there were counterbalancing 
disadvantages. * If I live much longer in the king's room,' 
she writes in April 1705, ' I shall become paralysed. 
There isn't a door or a window that shuts. One is 
buffeted by a wind which reminds me of the American 
hurricanes.' And from Fontainebleau there is the same 
complaint. 'Don't imagine that I can put screens in 
front of mj big window. One can't arrange one's room 
as one would like to, when the king comes there every 
day. One has to die symmetrically.' 

Anonymous letters, too, though we profess to dis- 
regard them, often leave a sting ; and Madame de Main- 
tenon received her full share. One would abuse her for 
allowing people to be killed and ruined all through the 
summer and forbidding amusements in the winter. 
Another, more venomously still, would ask v^rhether she 
were not tired of sucking the blood of the poor ; or what, 
considering her age, she hoped to do with the wealth 
she was piling up. One day a poor woman came to her 
weeping and asking for justice ; ' I have been slandered,' 
she said, 'and I demand reparation,' 'Slander?' said 
Madame de Maintenon bitterly, 'why, we live on it at 
Court.' 

However, life was not all black. Apart from the inter- 
est of Saint-Cyr, the society of a few chosen friends, such 
as Mme. de Dangeau, the kind, clever and charming lady 
against whom not even Saint- Simon has a word to say, or 
Mme, de Caylus, or witty Mme. d'Heudicourt, added a 
zest to life. But there was one tie which, more than all 
others, bound her to Versailles. The marriage of the 
Duke of Burgundy in 1696 had not only brought a fresh 
and charming personality to Court, but had provided 
Madame de Maintenon with an occupation of the kind 
that was most congenial to her, that, namely, of forming 

Q 2 



228 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

the character of the future queen of France. To win the 
confidence and affection of the child of twelve was, to 
Madame de Maintenon, no difficult feat ; but to attach the 
young wife to a husband whom she respected but did not 
love, and to develop in the warm-hearted but headstrong 
princess the qualities needed for her future position, was 
a task which taxed all the elder lady's resources. It is 
to her credit that she realised at once that the kind of 
training which was suited to the demoiselles of Saint-Cyr 
was not adapted for a future queen, that the impetuous 
little princess must not be held in too tightly, and that 
she would never realise the emptiness of a life of pleasure 
till she had had her fill of amusements. In spite of pro- 
tests from high quarters, Madame de Maintenon deter- 
mined that the Duchess of Burgundy should enjoy her 
youth, and should, within certain well-defined limits, 
'sow her wild oats.' So far as circumstances permitted 
she even associated herself with the pleasures of the girl, 
sat through the balls at Marly, and endured the water 
parties on the canaP ; and, through the association, learned 
also insensibly to modify her own views on pleasure ; for 
we find her writing quite enthusiastically about some 
theatricals in which the duchess took part, and which 
were neither ' Esther' nor ' A thalie.' At all events, she 
thought, they were a much less harmful way of spending 
time than cards. But never for a moment did she relax 
the anxious watch which alone could save the careless 
feet of the light-hearted princess from the pitfalls which 
Court intrigue and family jealousies were constantly 
digging for her. She was rewarded by the whole- 
hearted devotion of her pupil, and her efforts seemed on 

' Her actual words, fed ajopris dramer, would seem to imply even more ; 
but it is incredible that she actually wielded a laborious oar ; such exercise 
would have been considered undignified for a great lady, apart from the 
fact that she was probably physically incapable of performing it. 



MADAME DE MAINTENON 229 

the point of being crowned with brilliant success. The 
duchess, always loyal at heart, had been drawn closer to 
her husband by the calumnies of which he had, for a short 
while, been the object ; and, on the death of Monseigneur 
in 1711, she had risen with unexpected dignity to her new 
duties as Dauphine. Everything seemed to promise a 
brilliant future, when the untimely death of husband and 
wife in 1712 plunged France into mourning. 

Madame de Maintenon was prostrated by the blow ; 
for some months she could not even bring herself to see 
the little Due d'Anjou, so poignantly did the child's face 
recall the mother's. She still had links to bind her to 
the past ; but the hopes which had reconciled her to the 
present and brightened the future had, within a few 
short weeks, turned to dust and ashes. * I never wish to 
love anybody again,' she cried ; and, ' I live more than 
ever at Saint-Cyr, to hide myself. When I am here 
[at Versailles] those who feel our loss most deeply gather 
round me, and we pass the day in tears.' 

But the great, like the poor, cannot for long indulge 
their private sorrows. ' I have always found,' she wrote 
to Mme. des Ursins, ' that the Court, which I have never 
liked, is a good place for the afflicted. One is forced to 
forget oneself in order to think of others.' And so the 
poor lady, with an aching heart, and longing for the peace 
of Saint-Cyr, had to brace herself to endure the daily routine 
of Versailles and Marly, more meaningless and wearisome 
than ever now that the one really fascinating figure had 
been removed. If ever Madame de Maintenon had coveted 
power, she expiated her fault in the sad years that closed 
the reign. Old and toothless, with powers of sight and 
hearing both failing, she was left almost alone to cheer 
and amuse the melancholy king who clung to her from 
habit. We can imagine the dulness of the long tete-a-tetes 
in the room that was so full of memories, the sad 



230 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

monotony of the evening concerts, and all the futile 
efforts to forget. 

Eelease came at length on September 1, 1715, when 
Louis XIV after three weeks of illness breathed his last. 
On August 30 Madame de Maintenon had distributed 
amongst her followers her few belongings and withdrawn to 
Saint-Cyr, leaving the king in an unconscious state. Her 
conduct on this occasion has been much blamed, and her 
flight branded as desertion ; it certainly seems to argue 
a lack of feeling. In her defence it may be urged that, 
as soon as the king had practically ceased to exist, her 
position at Versailles was certain to become ambiguous 
and difficult. Perhaps Jean Buvat is right when he says 
that, on the morning of the 30th, Louis bade her a last 
farewell and ordered her to retire at once to Saint-Cyr. 
The cruel words she is said to have used as she left the 
sick chamber have no historical foundation. Still, it is 
impossible not to regret that she showed such haste to be 
gone. If anything resembling love or even warm affection 
had ever entered into her feelings for the dying man, she 
would certainly have waited for the end ; for, with all her 
faults, she was a woman. But it was duty to the king and 
not affection for the man which had chained her to 
Versailles ; and, the duty ended and the task completed, 
she was glad to go. 

From Saint-Cyr, ten days later, she wrote to Mme. des 
Ursins : ' I wish with all my heart, Madame, that your lot 
were as happy as mine. I have seen the king die like a 
saint and a hero. I have left the world which I did not 
like, and I am in the most charming retreat I could desire.' 
The few remaining years of her life she spent in 
dignified retirement at Saint-Cyr, preparing for death. The 
Regent behaved like a gentleman, continued the modest 
pension she had received from the late king, and confirmed 
the royal grant to Saint-Cyr. Occasionally she saw a few of 



MADAME DE MAINTENON 231 

her most intimate friends, the Marechal de Villeroy, Mme. 
de Dangeau, Mme. de Caylus, and other members of her 
family : but she never again left the convent walls or 
attempted to influence state affairs. In the June of 
1717 she was honoured by a visit from that clever savage, 
Peter the Great, and described the event to Mme. de 
Caylus with something of her old verve. 

'The Czar arrived at seven and sat down by my 
bedside. He asked me, through his interpreter, if I was 
ill. I replied " Yes." He then asked me what my illness 
was. I replied, extreme age coupled with a feeble consti- 
tution. He did not know what else to say, and his 
interpreter didn't seem to understand me. His visit was 
very short ... I forgot to tell you that he drew the 
curtains at the foot of my bed a little way apart to have a 
look at me : you may imagine if the sight pleased him ! ' 

Though mainly occupied with preparations for the 
future world, it was impossible that her thoughts should 
not wander back at times to the past, and, on these rare 
occasions, she felt her isolation. 

' Between ourselves,' she wrote to the Marechal de 
Villeroy in 1717, * I should be happier than I am if I had 
some society : but that is impossible here ; and, however 
clever a nun may be, she knows nothing about the things 
which have interested us all our lives.' 

The end came peacefully on April 15, 1719. Instead 
of the fabulous wealth with which she was credited, she 
left sixteen thousand francs in cash, twelve thousand 
francs' worth of plate, and a ring, the gift of the late 
king, worth ten or twelve thousand francs. No royal 
favourite had ever cost France less. 

Her political influence is difficult to estimate. In the 
privacy of her apartment, where the king worked alone 
with her and his ministers, her advice was often asked 
and her opinions carried weight. She had approved of 



232 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

the Spanish adventure, and had afterwards ardently longed 
for peace, almost at any price. But she did not hold the 
threads of policy in her hands, as her contemporaries 
supposed, and her influence over the king, as none knew 
better than herself, had its limits. * To tell you the truth, 
Monseigneur,' she wrote to the Archbishop of Paris, at 
one time her most trusted and confidential friend, ' the 
king does not like to hear of business except through his 
ministers, and he is vexed with the Papal Nuncio for 
writing directly to me. Make him understand the position 
once and for all, I implore you. I can only give general 
advice on occasions, and have no control over particular 
events, which are seldom mentioned before me. I should 
be only too well rewarded for the slavery in which I live 
if I could sometimes do good ; but, Monseigneur, I can 
only groan when I see what shape things are taking . . . 
Please tell the Nuncio that I dare not interfere in state 
business, that my opinions are what he does me the 
honour of believing them to be, but that I have to keep 
them to myself.' 

To this it must be added that her interests were not 
political, and that, in consequence, when she endeavoured 
to promote individuals to great offices, she was apt to think 
more of their personal worth than of their fitness for the post. 
As a moral reformer, which was perhaps the role she coveted, 
she failed conspicuously. Over individuals indeed her 
influence was immense. She made Louis, if not a better 
king, at least a better man. The Duchess of Burgundy, 
who promised to be her brightest legacy to France, died 
before time had tested her work. But she did not enter 
as a regenerating force into the life of her generation. 
Her idea of religion was too narrow and austere to appeal 
to the quick wits and lively disposition of her countrymen. 
By a strange irony of fate she had helped to expel from 
France the very men who, though they detested her 



MADAME DE MAINTENON 233 

theology, shared her views on life and conduct ; and the 
courtiers at Versailles hated her conception of duty for the 
same reasons that had made them hate the Huguenots. 
All that she effected was to make religion appear synony- 
mous with dulness, and to pave the way for the licentious 
paganism of the Eegency.^ 

' In order to keep this sketch within reasonable limits I have been 
obliged to omit many interesting and important details. A great deal of 
the matter touched on is highly controversial, but want of space has 
prevented me from going into the points of the controversy. Many people 
derive their ideas of Madame de Maintenon from the highly coloured pages 
of Saint-Simon, who hated her as the protectress of the Due du Maine and 
was unable to correct his prejudices by personal knowledge of the lady. 
But, in trying to prove her an all-powerful and malign influence, he some- 
times proves too much. The fall of Chamillart, according to him, was the 
work of a long and patient intrigue conducted by the favourite to a 
triumphant issue. But an influence which for years was powerless against 
a minister whose conspicuous failure had made him generally unpopular, 
would not have been an influence that counted for much. As a matter 
of fact it was only Louis' personal affection for Chamillart that pre- 
served him so long in office. In the end he had to be sacrificed 
to the popular demand. Madame de Maintenon speaks of his fall 
several times in her letters, and never with any trace of personal feeling or 
the least suggestion of triumph. Equally free from bitterness are her 
allusions to the Due d'Orl^ans. At a time when Saint-Simon supposed her 
to be plotting his destruction she wrote to her favourite, the Due de Noailles, 
' The respect which I owe to the Due d'OrMans prevents me from saying a 
word about his conduct ' (a discreditable intrigue in Spain, whose object was 
to secure him the crown) ; ' I see with sorrow the harm he has done to 
himself in public opinion. From another point of view he is openly leading 
a scandalous life, and the king suffers in his affections and his conscience. 
Wherever one turns there is nothing but trouble.' 



234 THE GllEAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 



CHAPTER VlII 

MONSIEUR 

Childhood— Character— Has no political influence— Jealous of his rights— 
His married life— An egoist— His religion— Quarrel with the king- 
Death and funeral. 

Amongst the numerous dramatis personce of Versailles 
there were two men who figured prominently at all state 
functions and in all public ceremonies. An outsider, 
judging by the prominent position they occupied on such 
occasions and the marked deference with which they were 
treated by the king, would naturally have assumed that 
they were two of the most influential personalities at 
Court. In reality, the part they played was that of royal 
• supers.' They were, Monsieur the king's brother, and 
Monseigneur the king's son. 

Of Monsieur, in his final and least attractive stage, 
Saint-Simon has left us one of his most vivid portraits : 

* A small man with a projecting stomach, whose heels 
were so high that he seemed to be on stilts ; as particular 
about his dress as a woman ; covered with rings, bracelets, 
jewelry, bows, and ribbons ; with a wig, full in front, 
black and powdered ; reeking of all kinds of scents, and 
scrupulously clean in all his person ; he was accused of 
putting on rouge imperceptibly ; his nose was long, his 
mouth and eyes good, his face full but very long. All 
his portraits are like him.' 

For this effeminate and over-dressed creature, who 



MONSIEUR 235 

combined the worst faults of a woman with the most 
degrading vices of a man, it would be difficult to feel 
anything but contempt, if contempt were not tinged with 
pity ; for Monsieur was, to a great extent, the victim of 
his upbringing. 

Philippe, Due d'Anjou, who, on the death of his uncle 
Gaston, became Due d' Orleans and took the title of 
Monsieur was born at St. Germain on September 21, 
1640. In his early years he showed intelligence ; but, if 
the king was not allowed to know much, it was not 
likely that the younger brother would be permitted to 
know more. ' The cardinal,' wrote Madame, his second 
wife, * was afraid that Monsieur might be better educated 
than the king ; and, with this strange fear in his mind, 
he ordered the tutor to teach him nothing at all. " What 
are you thinking of ? " he said one day to M. de la Mothe 
[the tutor]. " It will never do to make the king's brother 
an able man. If he knew more than his Majesty he 
would no longer be capable of blind obedience." ' 

Accordingly, from the very first, Philippe was trained 
to occupy a subordinate position. The two boys were 
brought up together, played, quarrelled, and loved one 
another ; but in all disputes the younger had to give way 
to the elder, and was made to feel, almost from his 
cradle, that his first duty was to efface himself before 
the superior claims of the future king. The ascendency 
which Louis thus acquired and retained through life was 
not due merely to the mother's preference for the elder 
son. Anne of Austria was impressed with the dangers 
of family dissensions; and the trouble which Gaston of 
Orleans, weak and vacillating as he was, had given to 
Louis XIII was a warning of what might happen in the 
future. She was determined, therefore, that Philippe 
should never be capable of heading an opposition ; and, 
though she loved the child and was loved in return, she 



236 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

had no scruples in sacrificing his mental development to 
her conception of monarchy. Being a stupid woman her- 
self, she probably had no idea what such a sacrifice might 
entail. 

Philippe's character seconded the political aims of his 
mother. He had none of the natural virility which 
enabled Louis XIV to survive the effeminising influences 
of his youth. As a child he was pretty rather than hand- 
some, and pretty like a girl. In the society of the Court 
ladies, with whom he spent most of his time, and who 
petted and caressed the attractive and lively child, he 
learned to prattle, to play games, and to take a keen 
interest in dress ; worst of all, he was encouraged to dress 
himself up as a girl. The youth who emerged from these 
surroundings had little to commend him. Nearly all the 
Bourbons, even the worst, were fond of hunting, physically 
hardy, and capable of enduring heat and cold, hunger and 
thirst. Philippe hated fatigue and seldom hunted, partly 
because he found the exercise exhausting and partly 
because he feared that exposure to the air would ruin his 
complexion. Unable any longer to dress like a girl in 
public, he would put on a mob-cap and earrings in the 
privacy of his bedroom, and contemplate himself in the 
looking-glass. The amusing prattle of the child had 
become the aimless chatter of a gossiping fop, and Philippe 
was notorious as one of the greatest busybodies in the 
Court, the promoter of petty squabbles, the purveyor of 
small scandal, vain, fickle, indiscreet, and incapable of 
keeping a secret. He still seized eagerly every opportunity 
that presented itself of displaying his charms in feminine 
attire. At theatricals he chose the role of heroine or 
bonne ; and one evening, at the Palais Eoyal, he even 
went so far as to appear at a masked ball in his favourite 
costume. * After opening the ball with Mile. Brancas he 
withdrew, dressed himself up as a woman, and came back 



MONSIEUE 237 

masked, holding the arm of the Chevalier de Lorraine. 
He danced a minuet, and then took his place among the 
ladies. After a little pressing he removed his mask ; he 
wanted nothing better than to be seen and admired.' 

It is not surprising that the young men whose com- 
pany he affected treated him with scant respect. ' At a 
ball at Lyons, in 1658, the Comte de Guiche, one of his 
favourites, amused himself by playfully kicking Monsieur 
from behind. Monsieur made no objection, but the queen- 
mother was angry, and de Guiche had to retire for a while 
from the Court.' ^ 

Such a character, under ordinary circumstances, would 
have been allowed to sink into deserved obscurity. But 
Monsieur was the king's brother, and Louis' conception of 
monarchy required that anybody who was closely con- 
nected with the sovereign should share in the reflected 
lustre of the throne. It is only fair to add that Louis was 
fond of Philippe ; but more from habit and association than 
from any tastes they shared in common. The king had a 
very clearly defined idea of the position which his brother 
was to occupy. He was to enjoy the shadow of favour 
without the substance. He was encouraged to have a high 
idea of his own importance. In the private apartments 
he enjoyed privileges that were not even accorded to the 
Dauphin ; he always had an armchair, and did not wait 
for the king's permission to use it ; and, after supper, in 
the king's cabinet, he alone shared with the sovereign 
the privilege of being seated. When fetes had to be 
organised or theatricals rehearsed, Monsieur exercised a 
little brief authority ; and his intimate acquaintance with 
Court pedigrees, intermarriages, and titles (the only form 
of knowledge which he possessed), led to his being con- 
sulted as an expert on questions of precedence and etiquette. 

' Education des Princes de la Maison des Bourbons de France, by 
H. Druon. 



238 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

His vain and superficial nature was easily contented with 
this fictitious importance, and nobody was more jealous 
of his prerogatives. When the cardinals took to wearing 
purple mourning, a colour hitherto reserved for royalty, it 
was Monsieur who called attention to the encroachment 
and thwarted their ambition ; when the Princes of the 
Blood showed an inclination to refuse the service which 
they owed to the ' Sons of France,' it was Monsieur once 
more who brought them to heel. His method of doing so 
was more original than dignified. Amongst the most 
valued privileges of royalty was that of receiving its under- 
garments from the hands of the most distinguished person 
present at the toilet. This service the Princes of the 
Blood were trying to renounce, not by any open refusal, 
but by absenting themselves on all occasions when it could 
be required and allowing the reason of their absence to 
be known. Monsieur, wounded in his tenderest suscepti- 
bilities, complained to the king, who replied that the 
matter was not one of first-rate importance. At the same 
time he advised his brother, if he felt keenly on the sub- 
ject, to take some opportunity of exacting the service. 

At Marly, Monsieur was lodged on the ground-floor 
of the main building ; and there, fortified by the king's 
approval, he waited like a spider for his prey. One 
morning, at last, the fly walked into the parlour. Mon- 
sieur had just risen from bed, and, clad in his dressing- 
gown, was looking out of window, when he spied M. le 
Due (grandson of the great Conde) in the garden. Hastily 
throwing open the windows, he called to him ; and M. 
le Due, suspecting no treachery, came up. Monsieur 
asked him where he was going to, and, as he put the 
question, stepped back through the open window. The 
duke, in order to make his answer heard, was obliged to 
make a corresponding advance ; and so by a succession 
of questions, accompanied by strategical retreats, Monsieur 



MONSIEUR 239 

drew the guileless duke into the ambush. Then, suddenly 
throwing off his dressing-gown and night-shirt, he signalled 
to the premier valet de chamhre to put the day-shirt into 
the prince's hands. M. le Due, completely trapped, did 
not dare to refuse. He took the proffered garment and 
passed it to Monsieur, who laughed and said, ' Good-bye, 
cousin ; you can go now, I mustn't detain you any longer.' 
The duke, who felt all the malice of these words, went 
away in a rage, which was not soothed by the arrogant 
account Monsieur afterwards gave of the incident. 

But of real power Monsieur had no share. His advice 
was never asked at important crises ; and the ministers, 
who were wont to flatter anybody who possessed the 
smallest influence with the king, scarcely troubled them- 
selves to be even civil. On the rare occasions when some 
spark of ambition was kindled within him and he clamoured 
for the substantial rewards of favour, he was easily put off 
with flattering words or some trivial gift. The one thing 
which was never grudged him was money, and at the 
Palais Koyal and St. Cloud he held a showy though 
stormy Court. Young men without a future, and high- 
born ladies with a past, thronged his salons and crowded 
round his gaming tables ; for cards were the one serious 
occupation of his life. St. Cloud was a delightful summer 
residence and its gardens were famed for their beauty ; and, 
as it lay on the direct road from Paris to Versailles, people 
passing from one place to the other would often look in to 
pay their respects to the king's brother and taste his good 
cheer. As Monsieur did not like his palace to be regarded 
as a mere halting-place, they generally concealed the fact 
that they were on their way to or from the Court. 

But, in spite of the futility of his actual life. Monsieur 
had once had in him the germs of better things. He had 
been genuinely attached to his mother and, during her long 
and fatal illness, had nursed her with the devotion of a 



240 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

daughter, talked to her eloquently about the comforts of a 
religion which he did not practise, and mastered his 
physical shrinking from the atmosphere of a sick chamber 
which was unusually distressing.^ Nor had he always 
been wholly without the physical courage which was 
characteristic of the Bourbons. Daniel de Cosnac had 
refused to enter his service as almoner till he had assured 
himself that Monsieur had in him the 'makings of a 
man.' At the siege of Mons, and during the campaign in 
Flanders, he had displayed a contempt for danger and 
an indifference to fatigue which had been all the more ad- 
mired because they were unexpected. Unfortunately, his 
prowess excited the jealousy of the young king, who was 
prevented by reasons of state from exposing his own per- 
son too freely. The victory of Cassel ended Monsieur's 
military career. The cry of ' Vive le Boi et Monsieur qui 
a gagne la hataille ' was not the kind of homage that Louis 
appreciated, and the younger brother was never again 
invited to command an army. He relapsed into his effemi- 
nate ways ; boasted of his military achievements ; showed 
the ladies how battles were fought and won with the fur- 
niture of his rooms ; but acquiesced, with fatal readiness, 
in a decision which deprived him of all chance of winning 
fresh laurels. 

The married life of such a man was not likely to prove 
a success ; but Monsieur made two experiments. His first 
wife was Henriette d'Angleterre, the clever and beautiful 
daughter of Charles I, whose early misfortunes had in- 
vested her with a halo of romance to which few people at 
the French Court, except her husband, were insensible. 
She bore him two daughters, one of whom became Queen 
of Spain ; and her sudden death, in 1670, involved 

' Anne of Austria died of cancer, and the medical knowledge of the day 
was quite incapable of dealing with the disease. When M. de Motteville 
tried to raise the queen in her bed, he fainted. 



MONSIEUR 241 

Monsieur in an odious suspicion which his conduct had 
done something to justify. Saint-Simon gives the story 
with his usual wealth of detail. Henriette, who enjoyed the 
royal favour in a marked degree, outraged in her suscep- 
tibilities as wife by the domination which the Chevalier 
de Lorraine exercised over her husband, had procured 
from the king the favourite's banishment. Monsieur, who 
had first fainted at the news and afterwards thrown him- 
self at the king's feet with tears and entreaties, was 
unable to shake Louis' determination. After repeated 
scenes with his wife, whose part in the proceedings he 
suspected though she was careful to deny all complicity, 
he resigned himself to the inevitable. Not so the Chevalier 
de Lorraine. Wearying of his exile in Italy, and despair- 
ing of a return till death should have removed Henriette 
from the scene, he despatched a packet containing a sure 
and secret poison to two of his accomplices in the house- 
hold, d'Effiat and Beuvron. In the June of 1670, Henriette, 
after her return from England, whither she had been sent 
to negotiate the secret treaty of Dover, had gone to St. 
Cloud to recover from the fatigues of the journey. She 
was in the habit, every evening, about seven o'clock, of 
drinking a glass of chicory water, which was placed for 
her in a faience pot, in the antechamber which led to her 
apartments. Beside it was a jar of ordinary water with 
which to dilute the mixture in case it should be too strong. 
On June 29 d'Effiat was discovered at the cupboard of this 
ante-chamber by the servant in charge of the place. He 
had the jar of water in his hands, and, questioned as to what 
he was doing, he replied without the smallest embarrass- 
ment that, knowing of the existence of the water, he had 
taken the liberty of quenching an intolerable thirst. 

The same evening, shortly after drinking her chicory, 
Henriette was taken seriously ill, and died at three on 
the following morning, after cruel sufferings. The king, 

E 



242 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

tormented by a horrible suspicion, determined to probe the 
affair to the bottom. At the dead of night he sent 
Brissac, with six trusty guards, to St. Cloud, to seize 
Purnon, the pre?7iier maitre cVhotel, who, from his 
intimacy with d'Effiat, was likely to be in the plot, if plot 
there were. Purnon was secured and brought by a back 
staircase into the king's bedroom. There, Louis, after 
dismissing all his attendants, addressed Purnon as follows : 
' My friend, listen to me carefully. If you confess every- 
thing and answer truly the questions I am going to put to 
you, whatever your own guilt may be I will pardon you 
and never mention the matter again. But beware that 
you do not conceal the smallest detail ; for, if you do, you 
will not leave the room alive. Was Madame poisoned ? ' 
' Yes, sire,' replied Purnon. ' And who poisoned her ? ' 
continued the king, ' and how was it done ? ' Purnon 
replied that the Chevalier de Lorraine had sent the poison 
to Beuvron and d'Effiat, and described how the crime had 
been accomplished. Then the king, after repeating his 
threats and promises, asked : * And did my brother know 
about it ? ' ' No, sire,' replied Purnon. ' Nobody was fool 
enough to tell him ; he can't keep a secret, and he would 
have betrayed us.' On hearing this the king uttered a 
prolonged ' Ah ! ' like a man who is suddenly relieved 
from an intolerable oppression. 

This story was told to Saint-Simon by a M. Joly de 
Fleury, who professed to have heard it from Purnon him- 
self. It receives some confirmation from a letter of 
Madame (the second wife of Monsieur) written in 1719 : 

' The Chevalier de Lorraine was exiled, but Madame 
[Henriette] paid for it with her life. Her enemies would 
not take Monsieur into their secret. "He can conceal 
nothing from the king," they said. " If we confess to 
him that we intend to poison Madame, either he will 
prevent us or he will denounce us to the king and get us 



MONSIEUR 243 

all hanged." Those who accused Monsieur of poisoning 
his wife have done him a great wrong. He was incapable 
of it. In order to exculpate themselves . . . they made 
him believe that Madame was poisoned by the Dutch.' 

It is really not certain that Henriette was poisoned at 
all, but her contemporaries had no doubts on the subject. 
The king felt it incumbent on him to inform the second 
wife that he had assured himself of his brother's inno- 
cence, and that otherwise he would not have permitted 
the marriage. But it is incredible that he would have 
permitted the Chevalier de Lorraine to return to Court 
and have invested him with the cordon of the St. Esprit, 
if he had seriously thought him guilty of the murder of 
Henriette d'Angleterre. 

Henriette had hardly breathed her last when the Court 
was already speculating as to who would be her successor. 
The king was known to favour an alliance with his cousin 
Mile, de Montpensier, the heroine of the Fronde, and 
Monsieur was willing enough to accept her as a bride ; 
not because she was young or beautiful, for she was 
thirteen years older than himself, but because she was 
enormously rich. However, the Grande Mademoiselle, 
who had other and more romantic designs in view, refused 
to become a consenting party, and the choice had to be 
made elsewhere. 

It fell upon Elizabeth Charlotte, Princess Palatine, 
great-granddaughter of our own James I. The new 
Madame, who was only nineteen when she came to 
France, possessed in a marked degree the faults and virtues 
of the German character. Jealous of her rights but loyal in 
the performance of her duties, warm-hearted and intolerant, 
intelligent and prejudiced, she would have made an admir- 
able wife to a man whom she could have respected as well 
as loved. It says much for her natural goodness that 
she at once took her stepdaughters to her heart, treated 

E 2 



244 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

them as younger sisters rather than as stepchildren, and, 
when marriage took them into distant countries, never 
allowed a week to pass without writing them long letters. 
But for her husband, when the first illusions had worn off, 
it was impossible for her to retain any feeling stronger 
than one of contemptuous tolerance. No two people were 
more unlike or less fitted to live together ; Monsieur, with 
his indolent habits, his love of dress and his affected speech, 
who rouged his cheeks, and whose favourite formula for 
taking leave was, 'je ne vous quitte que pour le hon Dieu ' ; 
and Madame, with her passion for exercise, her active 
mind, and her complete indifference to personal appear- 
ance, who called a spade a spade, and never made the 
smallest effort to conceal her likes and dislikes. Indeed, 
their natural roles seemed to be inverted, and La Tonnerre 
wittily observed that Monsieur was ' la plus sotte femme ' 
and Madame * le phis sot homme du vionde.' 

Of the children resulting from this ill-assorted marriage 
two survived, a son and a daughter. After the birth of 
the latter the parents lived practically apart, each follow- 
ing his or her peculiar bent and meeting occasionally to 
quarrel. Madame at times electrified the not too reputable 
Court, which gathered round the king's brother at the 
Palais Eoyal and St. Cloud, by the home truths to which 
she treated them in her frank, uncompromising manner ; 
Monsieur retaliated, in characteristic fashion, by accusing 
his wife of flirting, or by banishing the only ladies for 
whom she cared. Into his private life we get many, and 
not always edifying, glimpses in the letters of Madame. 
* Nothing,' she wrote in 1695, ' could be more dull than 
our evenings in Paris. Monsieur plays lansquenet at a 
big table, but I am not allowed to approach it, nor to 
show myself while the game lasts ; for Monsieur has a 
superstition that I bring him bad luck when he sees me. 
Nevertheless, he insists on my remaining in the room. 



MONSIEUE 245 

I have all the old women who don't play on my hands, and 
it lasts from seven to ten and makes me yawn horribly.' 
In spite of these precautions Monsieur was not uniformly 
successful, for in the same year he lost two thousand 
pistoles in three days. 

With the death of his mother his last impulse towards 
self-sacrifice had disappeared, and he became frankly and 
cynically selfish. He could still cry over Jonatas, ^ but 
his parental instincts were almost dead. ' Monsieur,' 
wrote his wife in 1696, ' says openly that, as he is growing 
old, he has no time to lose ; that he will spare neither 
pains nor money to amuse himself to the end . . . that 
he loves himself better than me or his children ; and there- 
fore, as long as he lives he will only think of himself. And 
he acts up to his principles.' 

With such sentiments it was not likely that Monsieur 
would welcome the ascetic views of life which Madame 
de Maintenon endeavoured to popularise at Court. Fetes 
were his element ; and his voice was raised in protest 
against the curtailment of public pleasures which the 
Archbishop imposed on a reluctant Paris on the occasion 
of the Jubilee in 1696. For Madame de Maintenon he 
hardly concealed his dislike ; it was the one bond of union 
between himself and his wife. He would readily have 
pardoned an improper liaison, but it was beyond his power 
to forgive Louis for making him the brother-in-law of the 
widow Scarron. 

For religion, as he understood it. Monsieur retained 
a superstitious respect ; and, unlike his son, the future 
Eegent, he tempered his aimless, dissipated life by a strict 
observance of the ceremonies of the Church. No one was 
more regular in attendance at Mass or more scrupulous in 
his observance of fasts. ' Monsieur Feuillet,' he once said 
to the canon of that name, ' I am very thirsty ; would it 

' A play by Duche. 



246 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

be breaking my fast to drink the juice of an orange ? ' 
'Eh, Monsieur,' rephed the canon with admirable good 
sense, ' eat a whole ox if you like, but live like a Christian 
and pay your debts.' 

Though careful of appearances, Monsieur did not pre- 
tend to be devot. ' I told him,' wrote Madame to the 
Electress Sophia of Hanover, ' that you were curious to 
know whether he, too, had become devot. He laughed 
heartily, and said, " Tell your aunt that I am fonder than 
ever of my diamonds, and that I am no more devot than 
I was when I had the honour of seeing her." Neverthe- 
less,' adds Madame, * between ourselves, he is devot all the 
same, because it amuses him. Everything connected with 
worship delights him because he loves ceremonies.' 

In the closing years of his life he was subject to fits 
of depression. He had always had a genuine fear of the 
Devil, and nobody could have had better grounds for 
anticipating an eventual meeting. As the sands of life 
began to run out, he realised the advisability of making 
his peace with Heaven ; but, unlike his brother, he lacked 
the strength of will to break the chain of habit. He 
did endeavour to cut himself off from some of the plea- 
sures of the table; he also talked less, though still, as 
Saint- Simon drily observes, like three or four women ; 
but, apart from haunting fears and attacks of gloomy 
remorse, there was no real reform. 

The end came suddenly and dramatically after a quarrel 
with the king. In consenting to the marriage of his only 
son, M. de Chartres, with Louis' youngest illegitimate 
daughter. Monsieur had sacrificed his personal pride in 
the hope of securing solid material advantages. But these 
hopes were doomed to disappointment, as anybody who 
knew the king's character and policy might have foreseen. 
The son was no more allowed to win laurels on the battle- 
field than the father ; and, when the governorship of 



MONSIEUR 247 

Brittany fell vacant, the coveted post was given, not to 
the Due de Chartres, but to the Due du Maine. Monsieur 
came less frequently to Court, and his interviews with 
Louis were often accompanied by heated words. The 
king reproached his brother with the dissolute and scan- 
dalous life of the son ; Monsieur replied that nothing better 
could be expected from a young man who was purposely 
and selfishly cut off from all employment in which he 
might find a field for the exercise of his legitimate ambi- 
tions. 

Relations were in this strained condition when, on 
AVednesday, June 5, 1701, Monsieur came from St. Cloud 
to dine with the king at Marly. As soon as the council- 
meeting was over, he entered the king's cabinet, as was 
his wont. He found Louis much annoyed at the humiliating 
position in which the Due de Chartres had placed his wife 
by his open liaisori with one of her maids of honour, Mile. 
Sery, and reproached Monsieur with the behaviour of his 
son. Monsieur replied angrily that the past lives of 
certain parents hardly gave them a claim to be severe on 
the rising generation, and reminded his brother pointedly 
how his own mistresses had shared the carriage of the late 
queen. The king replied in kind, and the two men began 
to tell each other home truths in a loud voice. 

' At Marly, the door of the king's cabinet was always 
open, and privacy was only secured by means of a drawn 
curtain ; consequently the heated altercation was plainly 
audible to the courtiers who had assembled in the royal 
bedroom to pay their respects to the king on his way to 
dinner. Under the circumstances, the usher who had 
charge of the door ventured to enter the cabinet and 
inform the king that his voice, and that of Monsieur, could 
be heard outside. This timely reminder led to a cessation 
of the shouting ; but the quarrel was continued in an 
undertone. Monsieur said bitterly that, at the time of his 



248 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

son's marriage, lie had received all sorts of fine promises, 
but that he now realised that he was to have nothing but 
the shame and dishonour without any compensating 
advantages. The king, more and more enraged, replied 
that the war would oblige him to stud}^ economy, and that 
he intended to begin by cutting down the pensions which 
Monsieur enjoyed. 

' At this point the conversation was interrupted by the 
announcement that dinner was ready, and a moment 
afterwards the brothers came out and sat down to table. 
Monsieur was fiery red, and his eyes still sparkled with 
rage. Some of the courtiers, by way of saying something, 
remarked that Monsieur looked as though he would be the 
better for being bled ; a piece of advice which had been 
repeatedly offered at St. Cloud, and which Monsieur him- 
self had approved. But Tancrede, his surgeon, was old, 
and performed the operation badly; and Monsieur, in 
order not to hurt the old man's feelings, had refused to 
submit himself to other hands. At the mention of bleed- 
ing, the king joined in, and said that he didn't know what 
prevented him from taking his brother to his room and 
having him bled that very hour. 

' Monsieur ate prodigiously, as he was wont to do at all 
meals ; not to speak of the large bowls of chocolate which 
he drank in the morning, and the mass of fruit, pastry, and 
sweets, which he consumed at all hours, and of which he 
always had his pockets full. After dinner he took Mme. 
de Chartres to St. Germain to visit the exiled King and 
Queen of England, and thence returned to St. Cloud at 

6 P.M.' 

' He was in a very good temper,' says Madame, ' and 
told us how many duchesses he had seen with the Queen 
of England. At nine they summoned us to supper, but I 
refused to go, as I had been feverish for four hours and 
was not hungry. Monsieur said to me, " I am going to 



MONSIEUR 249 

supper and shall not follow your example, for I am very 
hungry." ' 

In the middle of supper, as he was helping Mme. de 
Bouillon to a liqueur, it was noticed that he stammered 
and pointed at something with his hand. He was in the 
habit, occasionally, of speaking Spanish, and some of the 
ladies present, thinking that he was addressing them in 
that language, asked him to repeat the words ; but the 
next moment he had fallen heavily against his son, who 
was seated beside him, in an apoplectic fit. 

'Half an hour after he had left me,' says Madame, 
' I heard a great commotion, and Mme. de Ventadour, 
pale as death, rushed into my room. " Monsieur is ill," 
she said. I went at once to his room, whither they had 
carried him. He knew me, but could not speak intel- 
ligibly. I could only catch these words, " You are ill ; go 
to your room." He was bled three times and given eleven 
ounces of emetic, Schaffhausen water, and two bottles of 
English drops ; but nothing was of any use. About 6 a.m. 
they saw that the end was near and dragged me out of the 
room.' 

News of the seizure was brought to Marly while the 
king was still in his cabinet with Monseigneur and the 
princesses; but it was accompanied with the hopeful 
tidings that the patient had been bled and was better. 
Louis was accustomed to hasten to his brother's side on 
the most trivial alarms. Probably on this occasion he 
suspected that Monsieur's illness was a mere feint intended 
to force a reconciliation. At all events, he contented 
himself with sending the Marquis de Gesvres to St. Cloud 
to make inquiries ; and, after giving orders that his own 
carriage should be held in readiness to start at a moment's 
notice, he went to bed shortly before midnight. A few 
minutes afterwards a page arrived with the news that 
Monsieur was better and a request that the Prince de 



250 THE GREAT DA^S OF VERSAILLES 

Conti would spare some Schaffhausen water, which was a 
favourite remedy for apoplexy. At 1.30 a.m., Longeville, 
who had been despatched by M. de Chartres, rode into 
Marly with the tidings that the emetic had produced no 
effect and that Monsieur's condition was critical. The 
king at once rose from his bed and started for St. Cloud, 
followed by Monseigneur and all the courtiers who could 
find a place in the carriages. He reached the palace at 
three in the morning to find his brother unconscious and 
Pere de Trevoux, who had been summoned to administer 
the sacraments, crying despairingly, * Monsieur, ne con- 
naissez-voiis pas voire confesseur ? Ne cojinaissez-voiis 
pas le hon petit Pere de Trevoux qui vous parle ?■ ' — a 
piece of incongruous sentiment which made the least 
afflicted laugh indecently. 

The king was deeply moved and wept freely. The 
death of the brother whom he had loved in spite of their 
frequent bickerings snapped a link with the past, and 
the circumstances of their last meeting could not fail to 
intensify his natural grief. 

At half -past eight he heard Mass in the chapel, and 
shortly afterwards, as there was no hope of a rally or even 
of a return to consciousness, he yielded to the entreaties 
of Madame de Maintenon and returned to Marly, after first 
saying a few words of condolence to Madame and her son. 
Three hours later Fagon, who had been left by the 
bedside of the dying man, arrived to say that all was over. 
On receipt of the news the king had a fresh access of 
tears ; and he continued to v/eep during dinner, which, in 
spite of Madame de Maintenon's suggestion that he should 
eat something in the privacy of her room, he insisted on 
taking in the ordinary way with the ladies. 

* After such unmistakable signs of grief it was expected 
that the three remaining days at Marly would be ex- 
tremely gloomy. However, on the day following the 



MONSIEUR 251 

death, after dinner (that is to say, at about 2.30 p.m.) the 
Duke of Burgundy went up to the Due de Montfort and 
asked him whether he would Hke to play at hrelan. 
"At hrelan!" cried de Montfort in amazement; "you 
must have forgotten ! Why, Monsieur is hardly cold 
yet!" "Pardon me," replied the prince, "I have not 
forgotten ; but the king does not wish people to be dull 
at Marly, and has ordered me to set them down to cards ; 
and fearing that others might be afraid to begin he has 
told me to set an example." ' ^ 

This action was regarded by Saint-Simon and his con- 
temporaries as a proof of the king's heartlessness. In 
reality, it was strictly in keeping with Louis' idea that, 
as sovereign, he had duties to perform to which he must 
sacrifice his private griefs and affections. Perhaps the 
sacrifice came more easily to him than to most people ; 
perhaps too, as a man, he lost by making it. Selfish 
natures are hardened rather than fortified by the forcible 
repression of natural emotions ; and selfishness was Louis' 
besetting sin. But there is no reason to doubt that in 
refusing to allow his personal grief to become a burden to 
his guests he was actuated by a sense of duty, or at least 
by a conception of his position which was not ignoble. 

Monsieur's funeral was full of the pageantry which he 
had loved so much in life. His heart was taken to the 
Val de Grace by M. le Due ; his body was conveyed to 
St. Denis with splendid pomp and ceremony. While the 
Bishop of Langres was sounding his praises in an eloquent 
funeral oration, Madame was turning out his cupboards at 
Versailles and destroying the compromising letters of his 
unworthy favourites. 

' Saint-Simon. 



252 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 



CHAPTER IX 

MADAME 

Her portrait — Childhood — Marriage— Belations with the king— Her children 
— Marriage of the Due de Chartres — Marriage of her daughter — Life at 
St. Cloud — Her tastes — Her religion — Dogs — Death of Monsieur — Scene 
with Mme. de Maintenon — Dislikes the Duchesse de Bourgogne— The 
Duchesse de Berry — A scene— 111 in 1712-1714 — A fright — Death of 
the king — Last words. 

* You must have completely forgotten what I am like if 
you do not class me amongst " the ugly." I have always, 
been ugly, and small-pox has made me still more so. My 
waist is huge, and I am as square as a die. My skin 
is of a reddish colour tinged with yellow, and I am begin- 
ning to grow grey. My hair is pepper-and-salt coloured ; 
I have wrinkles on my forehead and round my eyes ; 
my nose is crooked, as of old, and pitted into the bargain 
by small-pox, as are my cheeks, which are pendulous. 
I have large jaws and bad teeth. My mouth, too, has 
changed somewhat, for it has grown bigger and has 
wrinkles at the corners. . . . There's a handsome face 
for you, my dear Amelise.' 

Such is the unflattering picture which the ever-candid 
duchess drew of herself, at the age of forty-six, for the 
benefit of her half-sister. 

A portrait, by Eigaud, which hangs in the rooms that 
were once tenanted by Madame de Maintenon at Versailles, 
leaves us with a much more agreeable impression. Hand- 



MADAME 253 

some, Madame certainly was not ; but we see her there, 
a jolly, round old lady, with frank humorous eyes, and 
character stamped on all her features — a fine and robust 
specimen of the German great lady. 

Saint-Simon, who, as a judge of character, was often 
extremely penetrating, has supplied a word-picture which 
might well stand under the portrait : 

' Madame was a princess of the heroic age ; devoted to 
honour, virtue, the privileges of rank and dignity, and 
inexorable on the subject of etiquette. She was not with- 
out intelligence, and what she saw she saw clearly. A 
kind and loyal friend, reliable, frank, and upright, easily 
prejudiced and slow to alter an opinion once formed ; 
coarse, with a dangerous habit of abusing people publicly ; 
very German in all her ways ; outspoken, and incapable of 
mincing matters either about herself or others ; abstemious, 
and with whims of her own. She was fond of dogs and 
horses, passionately fond of hunting and the theatre. She 
always appeared in full Court dress or a riding-habit, and, 
at the age of sixty, well or ill (and she was seldom ill) she 
had never worn a dressing-gown. She was passionately 
attached to Monsieur her son, and almost madly so to the 
Due de Lorraine ^ (her son-in-law) and his children because 
of their German blood ; she was strangely fond of her 
nation and her relations, many of whom she had never 
seen.' 

Elisabeth Charlotte was born at Heidelberg in 1652. 
Her father was Charles Louis, the Elector Palatine (son 
of the ill-starred Frederick V, once King of Bohemia), a 
bad ruler but a man of some culture and character, who 
hated priests and practised tolerance. Her mother was 
the Landgrafin Charlotte of Hesse-Cassel. Dissensions 
between the parents led eventually to their separation, and 

' Saint- Simon was mistaken : Madame, as her letters show, was very 
far from being devoted to her son-in-law. 



254 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

in 1659 Charles Louis was married, morganatically, to the 
Baroness Louise von Degenfeld, by whom he had several 
children. It was thought wise that Elisabeth Charlotte 
should be brought up away from home, and she was 
entrusted to the care of her aunt, the Electress Sophia of 
Hanover, with whom she stayed for four years and for 
whom she conceived a lifelong affection. In 1663 she was 
brought back to Heidelberg, and lived with her father till 
1671, the year of her marriage. The glimpses we get of 
the little princess in her early years all tend to show that 
the child was mother of the woman ; she was a head- 
strong, unconventional child, with a good heart and a 
passion for freedom and the open air. For her nurses and 
governesses she was rather a handful. 'Fraulein von 
Quaadt,' she relates, * was our first governess, and she was 
very old. One day she wanted to whip me, for as a child 
I was rather turbulent. When she tried to pick me up I 
struggled so violently and kicked her poor old shins so 
hard that she fell in a heap with me. . . . That was why 
she insisted on going.' 

For the scenes of her childhood, and for Heidelberg 
in particular, Madame always retained the warmest affec- 
tion. ' How often,' she wrote long afterwai'ds, amidst the 
splendours of the French Court, ' how often I have eaten 
cherries on the hill at five in the morning with a slice 
of bread. I was much happier then than I am now.' 
And again, ' I deem you happy to be able to tread once 
more the promised land — to wit, Heidelberg and Schwet- 
zingen : greet in my name my old room and the salon 
vitre, and tell me all about them. I am sorry they have 
done away with the garden ; all the more because, in the 
quick-set hedge that lined the moat, there used to be 
countless nightingales, and in spring they used to sing 
all night. And what have they done with the little 
stream that flowed through the garden? Many a time 



MADAME 255 

have I sat and read on its banks on a fallen willow. The 
peasants of Schwetzingen and Offtersheim used to stand 
round and chat with me ; it was more amusing than a 
circle of duchesses.' 

This love of wild Nature remained a permanent fea- 
ture of the princess's tastes. ' I prefer the country and 
the trees,' she wrote in later life, ' to the most splendid 
palaces . . . and a green meadow stretching along a 
stream to the most splendid gilt cascades ; in a word, 
what is natural pleases me more than all that art or mag- 
nificence can produce or invent.' 

But from Heidelberg, with its cherries and nightin- 
gales, its homely German ways and intellectual interests, 
Elisabeth Charlotte was hurried away to the formal 
magnificence of the French Court, in 1671, when she 
was nineteen years of age. 

By marrying his daughter to Monsieur, the Due 
d'Orleans, only brother of the French king, the Elector 
Charles imagined that he had made a clever political move. 
The character of the prospective bridegroom was a matter 
of secondary importance for everybody except the unfor- 
tunate bride ; for it was the fate of royal princesses, then 
and since, to be pawns in the great game of European 
diplomacy. To the young bride the parting from her 
home and friends was bitter in the extreme. * I cried till 
my side swelled. I did nothing but cry from Strasburg 
to Chalons, and during the whole night. I couldn't console 
myself for the way in which I had taken leave of my 
friends at Strasburg. I had shown myself much more 
indifferent than I really was.' However, there were 
amusements at the French Court to which a young and 
lively girl could hardly be indifferent. The tears were 
dried, and, after a year of married life, she was able to 
write in the best of spirits to her aunt : ' I have only one 
thing to tell you, namely that Monsieur is the best man 



256 THE GREAT DAYS OF VEESAILLES 

in the world ; so we get on splendidly, None of his 
portraits are like him.' 

But this illusion as to the moral excellence of her hus- 
band could not last long in the light of everyday expe- 
rience. Indeed, Monsieur, with his scents and his foppery, 
his petty jealousies and effeminate vices, was the last kind 
of man to hold the affections of so essentially virile a nature 
as that of the Princess Palatine. An inborn Teutonic 
respect for the official position of her husband kept 
Madame's resentment within hounds ; but, in her letters 
to the Electress Sophia, the bitterness of the wronged 
wife would sometimes overflow. ' Monsieur thinks of 
nothing but bis favourites. He spends whole nights in 
orgies with them and gives them enormous sums of 
money. When I want sheets or anything I have to beg 
for them for ages, at the very moment when he is giving 
La Carte 10,000 crowns with which to buy his linen in 
Flanders ; and because he knows that I know where the 
money goes to, he is suspicious of me and afraid that I 
shall tell the king, who might well barish his favourites.' 
In 1682 relations had become so strained ' that Madame 
threatened to leave the Court ; and the king had to inter- 
vene in order to effect a formal reconciliation. 

The support and protection of the king, which Madame 
enjoyed for many years and never wholly lost, did much 
to compensate her for the neglect of her husband. Louis 
was a man of moods and prejudices and an eager devourer 
of flattery, but deep down in his nature there was a better 
self which seldom refused its tribute of respect to a down- 
right honest character. And it must be admitted that, 
unconsciously, Madame offered him the subtlest flattery 
of all, by treating him with a reverence and submissive- 
ness which she showed to no one else. But, in spite of 

' Monsieur had accused his wife, ridiculously, of a liaison with one of 
the Chevaliers of the Eoyal Bodyguard. 



MADAME 257 

this mutual goodwill, there were frequent sources of 
friction. For one thing, Madame's outspokenness was 
sometimes more than embarrassing. ' They are getting so 
particular here,' she wrote in 1685, ' that the other day 
the king sent his confessor to mine and has given me a 
terrible scolding on three points — first, that I had spoken 
coarsely about the Dauphin ; secondly, that I had allowed 
some of my maids of honour to have galants ; and, thirdly, 
that I had joked with the Princesse de Conti on the sub- 
ject of galants. These three things, I am told, have so 
displeased the king that, if he had not taken into con- 
sideration the fact that I am his sister-in-law, he would 
have banished me from the Court.' 

Annoying too, for a person of the king's fastidious- 
ness, must have been Madame's carelessness in the matter 
of dress ; for, though * inexorable on the subject of 
etiquette,' she was careless about her personal appearance. 
She had no respect for fashions, and ninety-nine times 
out of a hundred her * hair was all wrong ' — a misfortune 
which she ascribed complacently to heredity. ' It's so cold 
here,' she wrote from Versailles in the February of 1695, 
' that one hardly knows what to do. Yesterday, at High 
Mass, I thought my feet would be frozen ; for when one 
is with the king one isn't allowed to have a foot-muff. I 
had a comic dialogue with his Majesty. He was scolding 
me for having put on a scarf; "Nobody," he said, "has 
ever come to the procession in a scarf." " That may be," 
I replied, "but then it has never been so cold as it is 
now." "Formerly," said the king, "you never used to 
wear one." " Formerly," I replied, " I was younger, and 
didn't feel the cold so much." " There were older people 
than you present," said the king, " and theij didn't wear 
scarves." " The fact is," I replied, " that those old ladies 
would rather freeze than wear anything unbecoming, 
while I would rather be badly dressed than catch a cold 

s 



258 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

in my chest ; for I don't pride myself on my elegance." 
To which he said nothing.' 

Another habit of Madame's was also trying to his 
Majesty : she could not keep awake in church. ' It's a 
great honour,' she writes plaintively, * to be seated by the 
side of the king at sermons ; but I would willingly give 
up my place, for his Majesty won't let me sleep. As soon 
as I go off, he pokes me with his elbow and wakes me.' 
If we sympathise with the sleeper, we cannot refuse our 
meed of pity to the king ; for it seems, on Madame's own 
confession, that, as years stole upon her, sleep with her was 
always accompanied by loud snoring, which became so 
noisy and disturbing in course of time that she gave up 
going to sermons altogether. 

But a much more serious cause of difference was the 
intense grief with which Madame heard of the sack of the 
Palatinate. Discretion was not one of her virtues, and 
when she felt strongly she spoke strongly. * Though it 
were to cost me my life,' she wrote in 1689, ' I shall never 
cease to regret and deplore that I am, in a sense, the cause 
of the ruin of my country. I am seized with such horror 
at the thought of all that has been destroyed that every 
night, as soon as I begin to go to sleep, I fancy I am at 
Heidelberg or Mannheim, and seem to see all the desola- 
tion. Then I wake up with a start, and for two hours I 
can't go to sleep again. I picture to myself what it was 
like in my time and what a state it is in now, and then I 
can't help crying.' 

The death of her father added to her bitterness. ' I 
must confess that you have guessed my thoughts,' she 
wrote, ' when you say that what afflicts me so much is the 
fear that papa died of grief, and that if the "great man" 
and his ministers hadn't caused him such torments we 
should have kept him longer.' 

Now all letters, even those of the highest persons in 



MADAME 259 

the land, were regularly opened, and extracts from them 
submitted to the king. Madame was perfectly well aware 
of the fact ; but nothing could restrain her fluent pen, and 
her comments were all the more galling because the king's 
conscience was not quite easy about the Palatinate. 

But there were other indiscretions beside which her 
expressions of grief for her country were harmless. Madame 
was a good hater, and the special object of her aversion 
was no less a person than Madame de Maintenon, whose 
birth and humble beginnings were alone enough to rouse 
all Madame's princely Teutonic prejudices ; and there 
was, further, something in the lady herself which excited 
one of those inexplicable personal antipathies of which 
we are all conscious at times and which baffle analysis. 
Madame cannot mention the hated name without losing 
her sense of decorum and even of decency. ' Where the 
devil can't penetrate he sends an old woman.' 'I've told 
you of the death of M. Louvois; personally I would 
rather that a certain vieille ordure had died, for now she 
will be more powerful than ever.' * The king's old slops 
has long had this frightful power. She's not so mad as 
to have herself proclaimed queen, as she knows the 
character of " her man " too well.' 

These and similar expressions were duly reported to 
the king and the ' old slops ' ; and, to make matters worse, 
Madame confided her sorrows and her hate to the ears of 
the sympathetic Dauphine, who was also on bad terms 
with Madame de Maintenon. But the sympathetic 
Dauphine, unfortunately, made her peace with the 
powerful lady, and, as a pledge of friendship, repeated all 
Madame's confidences, as Madame herself was destined 
to discover on a subsequent occasion. 

As a consequence of these indiscretions the king's 
manner changed. There was no open breach, but it was 
made evident in a hundred little ways that Madame was 

s 2 



260 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

no longer a favourite; she was not admitted with the 
other princesses to the privacy of the royal cabinet, and 
if she wanted to talk to the king she had to beg for a 
private audience. However, her position at Court was 
not the only anxiety that troubled the poor lady's mind. 
She had two children, a son and a daughter, to educate 
and settle in life ; and the son, at least, was not all that 
a mother could have wished. Madame held stern and 
extremely orthodox views on education : to spare the rod, 
for her, was to spoil the child. * I never in my life struck 
my son,' she says, ' but I often gave him the rod, as one 
ought to do. He still remembers it. Blows are dangerous 
and may damage the head.' Saint-Simon hints that the 
daughter suffered from the same stern discipline, and 
Madame's pages certainly did. * When my pages behave 
badly I send them for a few months to Saint-Lazare ; the 
young people are very wise and docile when they come 
out. When the eldest of the von Wendts was my page I 
sent him too for a change of air to the same place, and 
it did him a world of good. They are whipped there 
twice a day, and oftener if they are fractious.' But, 
though a martinet, Madame was no tyrant ; she had rigid 
principles, bu t a soft heart for the young, as the following 
extract shows : ' I have here my grandson, twelve pages, 
and ten other little gentlemen, singing, jumping, and 
laughing, and making such a noise that I can't hear 
myself speak and I scarcely know what I am writing. 
I am sure they can be heard a quarter of a mile off.' 

Unfortunately, the son, who was afterwards to become 
Eegent, inherited few of his mother's sterling qualities, 
and, under the fatal influence of his father, developed a 
taste for debauchery that was regarded as eccentric even 
in an age when the standard of morals was not high. 
Madame was not blind to his faults. ' My son,' she said, 
* is like the child in the story, to whose christening the 



MADAME 261 

fairies were invited. One wished him a handsome figure ; 
another, eloquence ; a third, that he should learn all the 
arts ; a fourth, that he should possess all physical accom- 
plishments, such as fencing, riding, and dancing ; a fifth, 
that he should become skilled in war; a sixth, that he 
should be braver than any other. But the seventh fairy 
had been forgotten ! " I cannot take away from the child," 
she said, "what my sisters have given, but I will thwart 
him all his life long so that all their gifts will be of no 
use to him. Thus, I will give him such an ungainly 
walk that people will think him bow-legged or hump- 
backed ; I will give him such a growth of black hair on 
his chin, from day to day, and will cause him to make 
such faces (like a man in a dream) that his good looks 
will be spoiled ; I will disgust him with physical exercise, 
and plunge him into such a state of ennui that he will 
learn to hate all the arts he cultivates, music, painting, 
and drawing; and I will inspire him with a taste for 
solitude and a horror of the society of all good people." ' 
But, in spite of his faults, Madame loved her son, and to 
see him honourably married was the dearest wish of her 
heart. That wish was destined to be cruelly disappointed. 
The king ^ had always been keenly interested in the 
aggrandisement of his natural children. Of his three 
daughters, one had been married to the Prince de Conti 
and another to M. le Due, both Princes of the Blood. 
The third and youngest. Mile, de Blois, he intended for 
no less a person than M. de Chartres. But there were 
difficulties in the way. For the public disapproval with 
which the match was sure to be hailed the king cared 
little, but the certain opposition of both Monsieur and 
Madame was a more serious obstacle. Monsieur was ex- 
ceedingly sensitive on all points concerning his personal 
dignity, and Madame's views on bastardy and mesalliances 

' This account of the engagement is a paraphrase of Saint-Simon. 



262 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

were too well known to permit of any doubt as to how 
she would take the proposal. The first step was to gain 
over the father and son, and the agent employed was the 
Chevalier de Lorraine. This man had, from early times, 
acquired a complete ascendency over Monsieur, and, by a 
promise of the Order of the Saint Esprit, he was now 
bribed to make the marriage palatable. Monsieur was 
soon won over ; and, in order to make sure of the young 
prince, Dubois, a creature of the Lorraines, was intro- 
duced into his intimacy and had soon gained a fatal and 
permanent hold over him. As soon as the king heard 
from Dubois that the ground was prepared, he determined 
to hasten matters. But one or two days before the execu- 
tion of the design Madame got wind of it. She spoke to 
her son forcibly of the indignity of such a match, and 
drew from him a promise that he would never give his 
consent. However, one afternoon M. de Chartres was 
summoned, alone, to the king's cabinet, whither he found 
that Monsieur had preceded him. The king, speaking with 
the almost terrifying majesty which he knew how to 
assume, told his nephew that he was anxious to see him 
settled ; that the war, which had been kindled on all sides, 
forbade the thought of those foreign princesses who would 
otherwise have been suitable ; that none of the Princesses 
of the Blood was of a proper age ; and that, finally, he 
could not better mark his affection than by offering him 
his own daughter ; but that, however much he desired the 
match personally, he did not wish to force it upon his 
nephew, to whom he left complete freedom of choice. The 
prince, who was naturally timid and, like all the members 
of the royal family, much in awe of the king, was at his 
wit's end for a reply, but thought to get out of the diffi- 
culty by throwing the onus of a decision on Monsieur and 
Madame. So he stammered out that the king was master, 
but that his own wishes depended on those of his parents. 



MADAME 263 

' That is right,' said the king ; ' but, provided that you 
consent, your father and mother will offer no opposi- 
tion. Is it not so, my brother ? ' he added, turning to 
Monsieur, who had already signified his acquiescence in 
private. Monsieur expressed his approval, and thereupon 
the king remarked that the only thing still wanting was 
the consent of Madame; and sent for her on the spot. 
While she was being fetched the king chatted with his 
brother, and both pretended not to notice the confusion 
and dejection of M. de Chartres. 

Madame came, and the king at once said to her that 
he hoped she would not oppose a project so dear to his 
own heart and one which her husband desired to see 
accomplished and to which her son had given his consent. 
'When your Majesty and Monsieur,' replied Madame, 
* speak to me as masters, as you are doing now, I have no 
choice but to obey.' Thereupon, after making a short 
curtsy, she withdrew to her own room, whither she was 
immediately followed by her son, who was anxious to 
explain how everything had happened. But Madame 
refused to listen, heaped reproaches on him, and drove him 
from her room with a torrent of tears. 

That evening there was appartement. Scarcely had 
the music ceased when the king, who, as usual, was in his 
private cabinet, sent for Monseigneur and Monsieur, who 
were just beginning a game of Imisquenet ; for Madame; 
who was watching with listless eyes a game of homhre 
that was going on near her ; for M. de Chartres, who was 
playing moodily at chess ; and for Mile, de Blois, who 
had only just ' come out,' and who, although she was 
elaborately dressed that evening, had no suspicion of 
what was in store for her. She was naturally timid and 
very much afraid of the king, and imagined that she had 
been sent for to receive a reprimand. She came in 
trembling with apprehension, so much so that Madame 



264 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

de Maintenon took her on to her lap and held her there 
during the whole of the interview. It only lasted a short 
time ; the several characters then withdrew, and the news 
was made public. Monseigneur and Monsieur resumed 
their lansquenet ; Monseigneur looked like his usual self, 
but nothing could be more shamefaced and disconcerted 
than the whole demeanour of Monsieur. M. de Chartres 
appeared dejected, and his future bride extremely embar- 
rassed and unhappy. 

Meanwhile, Madame was walking in the Galerie des 
Glaces with Mme. de Chateauthiers, her favourite and 
worthy of being so. She paced up and down with long 
strides, holding a handkerchief in her hand, weeping 
without restraint, talking in a loud voice, and gesticulating 
freely — the very image of Ceres after the abduction of 
Proserpine. People, as they passed through on their way 
to the state apartments, respectfully left her a clear field. 

At the royal supper the king displayed his customary 
composure. Madame, who was seated next to her son, 
refused to look either at him or at her husband. Her 
eyes were full of tears, which every now and again over- 
flowed on to the table. M. de Chartres, too, had red eyes, 
and both he and his mother hardly touched the food. 
The king kept offering Madame all the dishes that were 
in front of him. She refused them all brusquely, without, 
however, succeeding in breaking down the air of courtly 
attention which he had adopted towards her. At the close 
of the brief gathering, which followed the supper, in the 
king's private room he made her a marked and very low 
bow. Madame replied with a short pirouette, and timed 
her movements so nicely that when the king recovered 
he found himself confronted by her back, and she was 
already on her way to the door. 

Madame spent the night in tears. On the following 
day the Court waited as usual in the Galerie des Glaces 



MADAME 265 

for the end of the council meeting, after which the king 
uFed to hear Mass in the chapel. Madame was there. 
Her son approached her, as he did every day, to kiss her 
hand ; and in a moment the impulsive lady had boxed his 
ears so soundly that the blow was heard for a considerable 
distance off. This incident covered the poor prince with 
confusion and filled the numerous spectators with pro- 
digious astonishment. 

The marriage was celebrated with great pomp on 
the Monday before Ash Wednesday, 1692. Cardinal de 
Bouillon said Mass and blessed the bridal bed. The 
exiled King of England, James II, handed the nightshirt 
to the bridegroom, and Mary of Modena did the same 
honour to the bride, who at the state ball on the following 
evening was led out to dance by the Due de Bourgogne. 

To Madame the festivities were gall and wormwood, 
but she had to endure them. In the course of long years 
she became partially reconciled to her daughter-in-law, 
whom she had at first described as ' a disagreeable person, 
who gets as drunk as a currier three or four times a week ' ; 
but she never forgave the marriage. Twenty-five years 
later she could still write, ' My son's marriage has spoiled 
my whole life and destroyed my jovial temperament.' 

"With her daughter, Madame was not quite so un- 
successful ; and though the Duke of Lorraine was not 
reckoned among the first flight of European princes, he was 
better than the Comte de Toulouse, whom Madame had 
dreaded to have forced upon her as a son-in-law. Of all 
possible aspirants she would undoubtedly have preferred 
William III, who had become a widower, and for whom 
she had always maintained a kind of hero-worship. But 
politics and religion forbade the match. At one time she 
had even hoped for the Due de Bourgogne ; but, finally, 
the choice was limited to the King of the Romans and the 
Due de Lorraine. ' The news is only too true,' she wrote. 



266 THE GKEAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

' I fear my daughter will marry the Due de Lorraine. I 
should have preferred the King of the Komans, for the duke 
is too much under the thumb of the king. But, anyhow, 
she won't die an old maid or marry one of the bastards.' 

The marriage took place in 1698. Included in the 
trousseau was 20,000 crowns' worth of linen and lace, 
filling four enormous chests ; besides a toilet-set, worth 
40,000 crowns, a present from the king. 

' Everybody cried at the wedding,' wrote Madame, 
with pardonable exaggeration ; ' the King, the King and 
Queen of England, all the princesses, all the ecclesiastics, 
and all the courtiers ; even the Guards and the Suisses ; 
only the Dauphin didn't shed a tear, but treated the cere- 
mony as a spectacle. The Duchesse de Bourgogne showed 
at last that she has a good heart, for she was so upset 
that she couldn't eat.' 

Although the king retained for Madame, at the bottom 
of his heart, a feeling of respect that was not far removed 
from affection, her letters and her behaviour kept her in 
continual disgrace. In 1698 she wrote : * In this great 
Court I have become almost a hermit ; so I pass whole 
days alone in my study reading and writing. If somebody 
comes to pay me a visit, I see him for a moment, speak 
to him of the weather or the news of the day, and then 
return to my solitude. Four times a week I have my 
correspondence-day. On Monday I write to Savoy ' ; on 
Wednesday, to Modena ^ ; on Thursday and Sunday, long 
letters to my aunt of Hanover. From six to eight I 
drive with Monsieur and our ladies. Three days a week 
I go to Paris, and I write daily to my friends there.' 
Saint-Cloud was her favourite residence, the Palais Eoyal 
her aversion. 'Paris pue,' she says roundly; and she 
never became reconciled to the capital, though she was 
popular among the Parisians. 

• To a step-daughter. ' To a cousin. 



MADAME 267 

Saint-Simon gives an amusing picture of her life at 
Saint-Cloud at about the same time. 

' Madame dined and supped with the Court ladies of 
Monsieur, occasionally drove with some of them, often 
sulked in company, made herself feared by her harsh and 
savage temper and sometimes by her sallies, and passed 
the whole day in her study (she had expressly chosen a 
room in which the windows were more than ten feet from 
the ground) contemplating the portraits of the Princes 
Palatine and other German princes, with which the walls 
were covered, and writing every day with her own hand 
volumes of letters of which she herself made copies for 
reference. Monsieur had not been able to tame her to a 
more civilised life. He let her do as she liked, and lived 
on good terms with her without troubling himself about 
her person ; and he had hardly any private intercourse 
with her.' 

Madame had never cared for the French as a nation. 
She thought them vain and frivolous, and missed the 
serious and intellectual conversation to which she had 
been accustomed in her own home. The ambition of 
French women to figure in politics provoked her censure, 
and their ignorance moved her to scorn. 'Very few 
ladies,' she says, ' can write French correctly ; French 
women themselves make every conceivable mistake, and I 
often have to correct my daughter's spelling: for I,' she 
adds proudly, ' write French very well.' The following 
specimen, out of many, of Madame's orthography, makes 
one suspicious of her claims. ' Madame la Comtesse, il y 
a deja quelque temps que j'ay regue vostre du 20 juillet^ 
vieux stille, mais il m'a este impossible d'y faire plus tost 
responce car vous croyes bie^i que dans ces tristes occa- 
tions je n'ay manque ni de lettres de condoliajices n'y de 
visit tes.' ^ 

' ' Asteur ' was her spelling of ' a cette heure.' 



268 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

To the end of her days she remained a thorough 
German. The splendour of the Court did not dazzle her : 
' Ennui reigns here more than anywhere else in the world.' 
The freedom of Marly displeased her, and she pities the 
young French nobles who do not know in what respect 
consists, because ' they have never seen a real court ' ; 
while of all the royal palaces she liked Fontainebleau best, 
because ' the rooms and galleries are so very German.' 
Equally German was her sense of humour. From time 
immemorial Germans have found something irresistibly 
comic in the spectacle of a heavy body sitting down un- 
expectedly. ' I have just been laughing till I cried,' she 
writes ; * I think I haven't laughed so heartily for eight 
years. A very fat lady, the Marechale de Clerambault, 
nearly fell into the fire. She stumbled so funnily over one 
of my little dogs that I don't think I have ever seen any- 
thing more comic in my life. Mme. de Chateauthiers 
caught her by the arm and saved her, and she didn't hurt 
herself.' It is only fair to add that Madame was equally 
amused when a similar accident happened to herself. 

Her dislike of things French extended to French 
cookery. French soups and stews she never touched. * I 
only eat of a few dishes,' she says, 'mutton, for example, 
roast chicken, veal kidneys, beef and salad. When I was 
in Holland I also tried plover's eggs, but I ate so many 
that I was sick, and have disliked them ever since.' 
France was consequently a land of dearth for her. ' Oh, 
for a good hiramhrod ! ' she cries pathetically, ' or a good 
beer-soup ! They don't give you stomach-ache.' But 
relief was sometimes forthcoming in the shape of a present 
of sausages from the aunt at Hanover, and English oysters 
were not despised. In a P. S. to- her aunt she says: *We 
rose from table half an hour ago. Mme. de Chartres was 
dining with us, a thing which doesn't often happen. 
Monsieur, she, and I, ate nearly two hundred English 



MADAME 269 

oysters between us. For my part, I have fifty inside me ; 
Mme. de Chartres the same number, and Monsieur must 
have eaten eighty. . . ,' 

But, in spite of occasional orgies, Madame was an 
abstemious woman. Her supper in summer consisted of 
' the legs of a young quail, a quarter of a lettuce, and five 
little peaches,' Nor did she, in Teutonic fashion, linger 
long over the mid-day meal. 'All through the year,' she 
writes in 1707, ' I dine alone ; consequently I get it over 
as quickly as possible. Nothing is so annoying as to eat 
alone with twenty great fellows round you, watching you 
bite and counting every mouthful. That is why I finish 
my dinner in less than half an hour,' For drunkenness 
she had a healthy contempt, 'Papa,' she says proudly, 
'never drank.' French wines did not appeal to her, and 
she annually imported from the Palatinate a supply of 
Bacharach, which she believed to be necessary for her 
health. The French apology for beer excited her disgust ; 
but her pet aversion in drinks was coffee. * I can't think,' 
she says, ' how people can like it. It tastes horrible and 
smells to me like bad breath. The late Archbishop of 
Paris ^ smelt just the same,' And again : ' I learn with 
pain, dear Louise, that you have taken to drinking coffee ; 
nothing in the world is more unwholesome, and every day 
I see people who are forced to give it up because it has 
made them seriously ill. The Princesse de Hanau died of 
it in frightful agony. After her death they found coffee in 
her stomach, where it had produced small ulcers. Let 
that be a warning to you, dear Louise.' In fact, there 
was no crime of which coffee was not capable. If there 
was sickness in Hanover, it must be due to the prevalence 
of the coffee habit ; and, when the Grand Dauphin died in 
1711 of small-pox, Madame, with some others, was of 
opinion that coffee was at the bottom of it. 

' Harlay. 



270 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

Somewhat Teutonic, too, at that epoch was her taste 
for Hterature. From her father she had inherited a 
passion for the theatre and a certain critical faculty. She 
thoroughly appreciated Moliere. ' Tartuffe ' was her 
favourite play, but * Les Femmes savantes ' ran it hard 
for first place. ' I know it,* she says, * nearly by heart, 
and I have seen it a hundred times, and yet it makes me 
laugh every time I see it again.' * Le Malade imaginaire ' 
appealed to her least. She read ' TeUmaque ' in manu- 
script, and had a considerable library of her own, which 
included a unique collection of chansons bequeathed to her 
by the Grande Mademoiselle. 

Like all possessors of books, she suffered much at the 
hands of borrowers. ' Thank you,' she writes to the 
Eaugrave Louise in 1706, 'for the slates. I have put 
them in my library, for you have no idea how many books 
I have lost. Now, when I lend a book, I enter the name 
on the slate, and rub out when it is returned.' In 
science, too, she took a dilettante interest. ' On going 
through my furs I found they were full of moth. But, as 
the proverb says, " there's a bright side to every misfor- 
tune," and I amused myself by putting the creatures 
under the microscope.' She kept up a long correspondence 
with Leibnitz, whom she held in great esteem, though 
her opinion of savants in general was far from flattering. 
' It is seldom,' she says, ' that savants are clean, that they 
don't smell unpleasantly, and that they understand a 
joke.' 

But Madame had more serious interests even than 
literature and science. Religion, except in its formal and 
ceremonial expressions, did not, as a rule, enter much into 
the life of her contemporaries at the French Court. But 
Madame, who was German in her prejudices, was also 
German in her reverence, and was incapable of thrusting 
the serious problems of life permanently into the back- 



MADAME 271 

ground. Brought up in the Protestant faith, she had been 
compelled by reasons of state to embrace Eoman Catho- 
licism at the time of her marriage. But, though she con- 
formed to its outward ordinances, the new creed had little 
hold over her imagination, and to the end of her days she 
thought, with her father, that ' monks and priests were 
worse than the devil.' Nor did the ceremonies of the 
Church appeal to her. Sermons and singing sent her to 
sleep ; Holy Week, with its numerous services, was ' the 
tedious week ' ; the Fete-Dieu, with its much kneeling, 
was equally irksome. ' If it doesn't please the dear God 
more than it pleases me,' she says, 'the priests are much 
to be pitied.' On the occasion of the Jubilee in 1696 she 
wrote : ' We are soon going to lead a very tedious existence 
here, for we have got a Jubilee— a most inappropriate 
name, for nothing is more melancholy. We shall be con- 
stantly packed off to church, we shall have to eat a lot of 
fish, to fast, and communicate. Besides, as long as the thing 
lasts, there will be no amusements, no comedy or opera.' 
Her religion, indeed, was not a matter of services ; it 
was, as she explains, ' a little religion of her own,' and, if 
it was somewhat limited, it was based on a spirit of 
common sense and tolerance that was a good deal in 
advance of her age. 'Priests,' she says, 'can't get on 
without disputes : when they haven't got to dispute with 
other creeds they quarrel among themselves, as I see 
here every day. I always hold by what good, honest 
Colonel Webenheim used to say to me : " There is only 
one good and true religion in the world, and you will find 
it among all creeds and in every country — it is the reli- 
gion of good people." ' Intolerance of all kinds was 
repugnant to her, and Luther, in her opinion, was as 
much to blame as his opponents. ' Dr. Luther was like 
all churchmen,' she says; 'they all want to be the 
masters and to govern.' 



272 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

But, if she disapproved of Luther, she retained a warm 
affection for the Lutheran hymns. ' Do you imagine, dear 
Louise,' she wrote in 1720, 'that I never sing the 
Lutheran psalms and hymns ? I still know a number of 
them by heart, and sing them. I must tell you what 
happened to me twenty-five years ago with my singing. 
I was in the Orangerie, which was being frescoed by M. 
Eousseau, who was a Protestant. He happened to be at 
the top of the scaffolding, but I thought I was alone and 
began to sing aloud the sixth psalm. I had scarcely 
finished the first verse when I heard somebody coming 
down from the scaffolding in a great hurry. It was M. 
Eousseau, and he threw himself at my feet. I thought he 
was going mad. "Good gracious, Eousseau!" I said; 
"what is the matter with you?" "Is it possible, 
Madame," he cried, "that you still remember our psalms 
and hymns ? May God bless you, and keep you in your 
good resolutions." ' 

Besides singing hymns Madame read her Bible. She 
possessed three, and read three chapters daily. ' Yester- 
day,' she writes on one occasion, ' I read six, because I 
shouldn't have had time for reading this morning, as we 
have been stag-hunting.' In her religion, as in all her 
life, Madame was superbly sincere, and every now and 
then there are some delightfully human touches in her 
reflections. ' Would to God,' she wrote in 1701 (doubt- 
less with Madame de Maintenon in her mind), ' would to 
God we were sure of being able to love and to hate after 
death ! Dying wouldn't be so terrible then.' 

She also tells a delicious story of her childhood. ' I 
always try to be sincere with God. This reminds me of 
worthy Mme. de Landass. When "die Kolb " was ill 
Mme. de Landass replaced her, and used to sleep in my 
room. She said her prayers morning and evening, out loud, 
and when she came to the Lord's Prayer she always omitted 



MADAME 273 

the clause " As we forgive them that trespass against us." 
It has often made me laugh.' 

Every wise person has a hobby. Madame's was the 
collecting of medals. ' You have no idea,' she writes, 
' what an amusement it is to me. I spend whole days 
looking at them. . , . Last Monday I bought another 
hundred and fifty with the money the king gave me on 
New Year's Day. I have now a room full of gold medals 
— a complete set of all the emperors from Julius Caesar 
to Heraclius ; none are wanting, and among them are 
some rare pieces that the king hasn't got. I bought them 
all very cheap ; for two hundred and sixty of them I 
merely paid their price avoirdupois. I have four hundred 
and ten gold medals in all.' 

Even dearer than her medals to the heart of Madame 
were her pets. ' Yesterday,' she wrote in 1702, ' I gave 
Mme. de Chateauthiers a handsome parrot that talks 
admirably. I wanted to see what it would say, and I had 
it brought into my room. My dogs were jealous, and 
Mione began to bark at the intruder. The parrot merely 
said, " Give us your paw." I wish you could have seen 
Mione's astonishment when she heard the bird speak. She 
stopped barking, looked first at it and then at me, and, as 
the bird continued talking, she grew frightened and went 
and hid under the sofa. Whereupon the parrot burst into 
a peal of laughter.' Apparently the shock was too much 
for Mione, for a month later Madame wrote to her half- 
sister Louise : ' I don't know whether you are fond of dogs, 
and whether you will understand the real loss I sustained 
the very day you were writing to me. Mione, the dog I 
loved best, is dead.' But there were plenty left, spaniels 
being the favourites. ' I went for a drive in the forest,' 
she writes from Fontainebleau, ' but we had scarcely got 
outside the gates when the coachman upset us, and sent 
us rolling one over the other. One of my ladies had her 

T 



274 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

shoulder cut by fragments of glass. ... I had seven dogs 
with me in the carriage, and not one was in the least 
damaged.' 

Perhaps any but a very pronounced dog-lover would 
consider the privileges which Madame allowed her pets 
excessive. They were born, lived, and died in her study. 
One was called ' Eobe,' ' because it was born on my velvet 
dress.' The same Robe ' has just jumped on to my table, 
even on to the paper, and smudged out a whole word.' 
But Madame took her pets very seriously, and she even 
dallied with Leibnitz's theory that their souls might be 
immortal. 

A life so full of occupations and interests could never 
really be dull, and in her heart of hearts Madame recog- 
nised the fact : ' Death,' she remarks sagely, ' is the last 
stupidity of which we are guilty.' But there were times 
when the conduct of Monsieur and the intrigues of the 
Court were a sore trial ; and in her gloomier moments 
she expressed herself with a vigour that must not be taken 
too literally. ' I have always regretted,' she says in one 
outburst, ' that I am a woman. I would much rather 
have been Elector than Madame.' And again: 'Happy 
are the unmarried ! I should have been well pleased if I 
had been allowed not to marry, but to live in happy isola- 
tion. The best husband isn't worth the devil.' When, 
however, the chance of gaining this ' happy isolation ' pre- 
sented itself, Madame clung to the Court with a tenacity 
that was almost comic. By the terms of her marriage 
contract, in the event of her husband's predeceasing her, 
she was to have the option of retiring to the Chateau of 
Montargis or of entering a convent. Saint- Simon gives 
an amusing account of her despair when the sudden death 
of Monsieur, in 1701, brought her face to face with the 
dread alternative. 

' Madame was in heicahiyiet at Saint-Cloud. She had 



MADAME 275 

never had great affection or esteem for Monsieur, but she 
felt her loss and the fall it involved ; and in her grief she 
kept screaming with all her might, " Point de convent! 
qu'on ne parle pas de convent !" ' 

Nor was the Chateau de Montargis a more alluring 
prospect, for, as she explains, ' as soon as you are away 
from the Court you are forgotten ; you lose all respect 
and consideration, and nobody comes to see you.' So, 
although she had been suffering from a sharp attack of 
fever, as soon as Monsieur had breathed his last she got 
into a carriage, with her ladies, and drove off to Versailles. 

It must be admitted that Louis behaved generously on 
this occasion. He had never really disliked Madame, 
though she had been annoying ; and no doubt he felt a 
genuine remorse for the bitter words that had been spoken 
at his last interview with an only brother. He was in a 
softened mood, willing to forget past wrongs and anxious 
to atone for his own shortcomings. But before the recon- 
ciliation was complete Madame had to sit on the stool of 
penance for a very humiliating quarter of an hour.^ Con- 
scious of the precariousness of her position she had 
determined to approach the king through Madame de 
Maintenon, and, as a preliminary, to make her peace with 
the all-powerful lady. The step cost Madame a good deal 
of humbled pride, but the pill had to be swallowed, and 
Mme. de Ventadour was sent as ambassadress to the 
Maintenon to beg for an interview. Madame de Maintenon 
promised that she would pay Madame a visit after dinner, 
but stipulated that Mme. de Ventadour should be present 
throughout the interview, which was fixed for Sunday, the 
day after the return of the Court from Marly. After the 

' The following account of the interview is a paraphrase of Saint- 
Simon. Saint- Simon has a way of dramatising his facts, and, no doubt, 
his narrative of what took place on this occasion is more picturesque than 
verbally accurate ; but it is probably substantially correct, as the details 
were furnished by Mme. de Ventadour, who was an eye-witness. 

T 2 



276 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

usual compliments, everyone, except Mme. de Ventadour 
and the two protagonists, left the room. Madame begged 
her visitor to be seated (a condescension which showed 
how great was her need), and began to complain of the 
indifference with which the king had treated her during 
her recent illness. Madame de Maintenon let her finish, 
and then replied that the king had authorised her to say 
that their common loss effaced all past differences from 
his mind, provided that he had more cause to be satisfied 
with Madame's conduct in the future than he had been 
in the past ; and that,'in saying this, he was not referring 
only to what had happened in connection with the Due 
de Chartres, but to things which concerned him still more 
nearly, of which he had been unwilhng to speak, but 
which were the real cause of the indifference which he 
had purposely shown to Madame during her recent illness. 
At this, Madame, who fancied herself on safe ground, 
began to protest that, except in connection with her son, 
she had never said or done anything that could give 
offence ; and launched out into complaints and justifica- 
tions. In the midst of her protests, however, Madame 
de Maintenon drew a letter from her pocket, showed it to 
Madame, and asked her whether she recognised the hand- 
writing. It was, indeed, a letter to the Duchess of 
Hanover, in which, after giving the news of the Court, 
Madame had said in plain terms that people didn't know 
what to think of the relations between the king and 
Madame de Maintenon, whether they were marriage or 
concubinage. After which she had touched on home and 
foreign politics and dwelt at length on the exhaustion of 
the country, which, she said, was past curing. This letter 
had been opened at the post, and in view of the serious 
nature of its contents the authorities, instead of making 
the customary extract, had sent the original to the king. 
You may imagine Madame's feelings at sight of this 



MADAME 277 

letter. She began to cry, while Madame de Maintenon 
gently rubbed in the enormity of each section of the docu- 
ment, sent, as it was, to a foreign country. Finally, 
Mme. de Ventadour began to talk at random to give 
Madame time to recover sufficiently to say something. 
Her best excuse was to confess frankly what she could not 
deny. She protested her repentance, begged for pardon, 
and was lavish with prayers and promises. 

When the subject was at last exhausted, Madame de 
Maintenon begged to be allowed to say a word about her- 
self, and to express her regret that, in spite of the honour 
which Madame had formerly shown her by desiring her 
friendship and promising her own, she had of late years 
completely changed. Once more Madame thought she 
was on safe ground. She replied that she was all the 
more delighted at this chance of an explanation, inasmuch 
as it was she who had a right to complain ; since it was 
Madame de Maintenon who had abandoned her and forced 
her in the end to discontinue the friendship, though she 
had long tried to maintain the old relations. As before, 
Madame de Maintenon allowed her to indulge freely in 
complaints, regrets, and even reproaches. At last she 
admitted to Madame that it was true that she had been 
the first to break off the friendship ; but that she had no 
cause to reproach herself, and that her reasons had been 
such that she could not have acted differently. Thereupon 
Madame redoubled her complaints and begged eagerly to 
be told what these reasons might be. Then Madame de 
Maintenon produced her trump card. She said that the 
reason was a secret which had never left her lips, though 
the person to whom she had promised silence had been dead 
for ten years ; and then proceeded to relate a thousand 
things, one more insulting than another, which Madame 
had said of her to the Dauphine at a time when the latter 
had been on bad terms with her, and which the Dauphine 



278 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

had repeated, word for v/ord, on the occasion of their 
reconcihation. At this second blow Madame looked as if 
she had been turned to stone. There were several moments 
of silence, and Mme. de Ventadour once more began to 
chatter in order to give Madame time to recover. In the 
end she could think of nothing better than to repeat her 
previous performance. She caught hold of Madame de 
Maintenon's passive hands, confessed her fault, expressed 
the sincerity of her repentance, and begged for pardon 
with tears and entreaties. Madame de Maintenon enjoyed 
her triumph coldly for a while ; but at last (as she had 
always intended) she allowed herself to be moved. The 
two women kissed, and swore oblivion for the past and 
friendship for the future ; Madame de Ventadour began 
to cry for joy ; and the seal of the reconciliation was a 
promise of the king's forgiveness, and a pledge that he 
would not say a word to Madame of the two matters 
which had been discussed.' 

The interview had been a terrible humiliation for 
Madame ; but it had practical results, and there was no 
more talk of Montargis or a convent. She kept her rooms 
at Versailles and Marly, and her pension was increased. 
Occasionally, too, she was admitted to the sanctuawe, 
where her presence was not welcomed by the other 
princesses. In October of 1701 she wrote from Fontaine- 
bleau : ' Yesterday evening the king allowed me to follow 
him to his cabinet after supper. His Majesty was most 
gracious, talked to me, and offered me oranges and 
lemons. This made some people jealous. Mme. d'Orleans 
and Mme. la Duchesse made faces, and were so furious 

' It is amusing to compare with this Madame's own account of the 
interview : ' I admitted that I had been vexed with her, thinking that she 
was depriving me of the King's favour and that she detested me, as I had 
also heard from the Dauphine ; but I said that I would gladly forget every- 
thing if she would be my friend in the future. Thereupon she said many 
flattering things, promised me her friendship, and we Idssed.' 



MADAME 279 

at seeing me in the cabinet that they nearly exploded. 
They couldn't contain themselves ; no more could the 
Duchesse de Bourgogne, who kept hinting to the king that 
he should get rid of me ; but I looked her straight in the 
face and covered her with confusion. At last I withdrew 
discreetly, fearing that they would annoy the king with 
their jealousy.' 

The eternal friendship sworn with Madame de Main- 
tenon was, like many other friendships of the kind, of 
short duration. But the king, though not by any means 
always cordial, kept to the letter of his compact and 
sometimes went out of his way to show his sister-in-law 
little acts of kindness ; and Madame, for her part, was 
more guarded with her tongue and her pen than she had 
been in the past. 

The first years of widowhood were tedious, as Court 
etiquette forbade her to appear in places of public amuse- 
ment. 'Every day,' she wrote in December 1701, *I 
hear people saying, " To-day there's a new opera, to- 
morrow there will be a new comedy." This year — a 
thing which has never happened before — there have been 
six new comedies and three new operas. I believe the 
devil has done it on purpose to make me discontented.' 
However, the king, who knew and sympathised with her 
weakness, contrived some alleviation. 'A novel and 
strange sight,' says Saint-Simon, 'was witnessed this 
year (1702) at Fontainebleau — Madame at the public 
comedy in the second year of her widowhood ! She did 
at first make some show of reluctance, but the king said 
that what took place in his palace must not be regarded 
as a public spectacle.' 

On one occasion Louis even took her part against the 
Duchesse de Bourgogne. The dames du palais of the 
latter had taken advantage of Madame's enforced absence 
from public entertainments to claim precedence over her 



280 THE GEEAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

ladies. Madame was very sensitive on such points, and 
she protested to the Due de Noailles, who repHed that it 
had been done by order of the king. Whereupon Madame 
went straight to his Majesty and asked if this was a fact. 
The king, who also was inflexible on questions of etiquette, 
'grew red with vexation,' denied all knowledge of the 
affair, and took measures to prevent a repetition of the 
offence. ' I'm not going to give up my rank or my preroga- 
tives,' says Madame defiantly, in a letter to her aunt, 
' however much favour certain people enjoy ; and the 
king is too just to allow it.' 

Madame was almost the only person at Court whose 
heart the Duchesse de Bourgogne had not won by her 
grace and amiability. Perhaps a touch of feminine 
jealousy may have been at the bottom of the dislike ; for, 
after the death of the Dauphine, Madame had been the 
first lady in the land until the arrival of the duchess 
relegated her again to the second place. But there were 
other reasons besides. Madame held rigid views on the 
proper deportment and behaviour of young people, and 
the duchess's light-hearted and irresponsible ways did not 
fit in with the older lady's idea of decorum. ' Good 
God ! ' she wrote in 1698, ' in my humble opinion the 
Duchesse de Bourgogne is being shockingly brought up. 
I am really sorry for the girl. She begins singing in the 
middle of dinner, dances on her chair, and pretends to 
bow to the company. She makes the most hideous faces, 
tears the partridges and chickens with her hands, and 
sticks her fingers into the sauces. In a word, it is impos- 
sible to imagine anybody more ill-bred. And the people 
who are standing behind her cry, " What grace she has ! 
How pretty she is ! " She treats her father-in-law, the 
Dauphin, most disrespectfully, and calls him " thee and 
thou." They say she is even more familiar with the king.' 
And again in 1709 she writes : ' I can't count on the 



MADAME 281 

friendship of the " young plant," who is badly brought 
up. All I can insist on is that, if she laughs at me, it 
shan't be to my face ; that she shall answer when I ask 
her a question ; that she shan't contradict me flatly when 
I say anything ; and that she shall be polite when I pay 
her a visit.' The duchess's answer to Madame's com- 
plaints was that she was afraid of her ; but we can well 
believe that the German ways and ungainly figure of the 
elder lady were an incitement to fun that sometimes 
proved too strong for the irrepressible little princess. 
There were other great people who could not resist the 
temptation of teasing Madame, or, at least, she thought 
so. ' I've got such a bad cough,' she writes in 1709, ' that 
I can't go out. I owe it to the courtesy of the Dauphin. 
Last Sunday it was bitterly cold, and they had lit a huge 
fire in the room where we were dining. If nobody sat in 
front of me, I had the great fire full in my face : the 
Dauphin could have warmed himself perfectly without 
the fire's incommoding me ; but, as soon as anybody sat 
down opposite me, he made a sign to him with his hand 
to move. I at once got a headache, cough, and cold.' 

But these slights, real or imaginary, were more than 
compensated for by an -honour of which Madame was 
very sensible ; for in 1710 her eldest grand-daughter was 
married to the Due de Berry, who had always been a 
favourite — 'Madame's Berry,' as the Dauphine used to 
call him. The new duchess was perhaps one of the most 
detestable and profligate women that a Court has ever 
produced ; her character was a compound of mean and 
vulgar qualities, and her passions were unredeemed by 
any trait of romance or generous feeling. 'Yesterday 
evening,' writes Madame, shortly after the marriage, ' the 
Duchesse de Berry gave us all a great fright. She 
suddenly fainted dead away, and we thought it was an 
attack of apoplexy. But, after the Duchesse de Bourgogne 



282 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

had sprinkled her face with vinegar, she came to and was 
horribly sick ; which was not surprising. For two hours, 
at the theatre, she had been stuffing herself with all sorts 
of horrors, peaches aii caramel, marrons glaces, gooseberry 
pate, dried cherries, and a lot of lemon into the bargain. 
Then, at supper, she ate a quantity of fish, and drank pro- 
portionately.' Gluttony, indeed, was one of the least of her 
faults ; but at the time of he-r marriage her full depravity 
was not yet realised : the Duchesse de Bourgogne tried to 
make a friend of her, and the Due de Berry, who was of 
a confiding and unsuspicious temperament, thought her 
perfection. ' The Due de Berry,' writes Madame, ' is 
delighted, and thinks she is the prettiest person in the 
world. As a matter of fact, she isn't pretty at all, either 
in face or figure. She is thick, squat, has long arms and 
short hips ; she walks badly and is ungraceful in all that 
she does ; makes horrible faces ; has a tearful expression ; 
is marked by small-pox ; has red eyes — light blue in the 
iris — and a red complexion, and looks much older than 
she is. What is perfectly beautiful about her is her throat, 
her hands, and her arms, which are very white and well 
formed. Her feet, too, are good : I can't imagine why 
she totters so when she walks. With all this her father 
and husband think that Helen was not half as beautiful 
as the Duchesse de Berry.' This portrait, like Madame's 
description of herself, does not, we may be sure, err on 
the side of flattery ; but a small picture at Versailles of 
the duchess, in the dress of the Carmelite nuns, hardly 
gives us a more pleasing impression, and discloses a puffy 
and discontented face that is singularly devoid of charm. 

Needless to say, the Duchesse de Berry was never a 
favourite of Madame's. Madame was not afraid, at any 
time, of rating the young for their follies in good set terms, 
and a personal request from the king that she would act 
as mentor to the young bride, whose conduct was giving 



MADAME 283 

offence, added a stimulus to her sense of duty. The 
encounters between the two ladies were frequent and 
sharp ; but the duchess, strong in the support and affec- 
tion of her father, generally snapped her fingers at her 
grandmother, and Madame got little satisfaction from her 
efforts except the pleasure of having had her say and done 
her duty. Madame has left an account of one of these 
skirmishes : 

* Versailles, October 1, 1712. — The Duchesse de Berry 
is more insane and saucy than ever. Yesterday she tried 
to be rude to me, but I gave her a piece of my mind. 
She came to me dressed up to the eyes, with fourteen 
poingons of the most beautiful diamonds in the world. 
She was all right except that she had put two patches on 
her face, which didn't suit her at all. As soon as she 
appeared, "Madame," I said, "you look splendid, but I 
think you have too many patches, and they don't look 
very distinguished. You are the first lady in the land, and 
your position requires rather more dignity than to wear 
patches like an actress on the stage." She made a face, 
and said, " I know you don't care for patches, but I do, 
and I intend to please nobody but myself." " That's an 
error," I said, "which is due to your extreme youth ; for, 
rather than please yourself, you ought to think of pleasing 
the king." " Oh ! " said she, "the king gets accustomed 
to anything, and I've made up my mind : I'm not going 
to bother about anybody," "With such sentiments," 
said I, " one can go far. Listen ! When I tell you my 
opinion, I do so for your own good, because I am obliged 
to do so as your grandmother and because the king has 
told me to. Otherwise I shouldn't say a word." " Silence 
is golden," replied she, "for speech won't do any good 
and won't prevent me from doing as I please." " So 
much the worse for you," I said. "But as everything 
you are saying is only the error of youth, I hope you 



284 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

will change. . . ." " I'm quite satisfied with myself," 
said she, "and I don't intend to change." "It's not 
enough," said I, " to be satisfied with yourself : you 
should want other people to be satisfied with you." There- 
upon she got up. " There's a little head," said I, " which 
will give you a lot of trouble." " What do you mean by 
that?" she cried. "You understand," I replied, "and 
that's enough ; but, even if you don't, experience will soon 
make you wiser," At this she left the room. In the 
evening I related the scene to her father. " Please teach 
your daughter," I added, "how she ought to speak to me. 
This time I was patient, but I cannot be sure that I shall 
always be so, and that I shan't explain to the king the 
way in which she receives my advice." My son was 
frightened, and begged me to say nothing to the king, 
promising to scold her soundly.' 

Madame, according to Saint-Simon, was hardly ever 
ill ; and, no doubt, all things considered, she was a robust 
woman. She continued to follow the chase on horseback 
long after she had passed the age at which ladies usually 
gave up such violent exertion — even after a fall from her 
horse had resulted in a broken wrist ; and if her com- 
plexion suffered, her health, no doubt, benefited. But at 
the beginning of 1712 she had a serious illness. ' I don't 
want to put off writing to you,' she says in a letter to her 
half-sister Louise, ' for God knows how often I may be 
able to write again. I won't conceal from you that I am 
considered seriously ill. I don't feel so, but the doctors 
say that the less I feel the worse I really am. My 
appetite is good, but I am rather somnolent,^ and I go to 
sleep everywhere, which is considered a very serious 
symptom here. Yesterday I was bled. ... I am resigned 

' Her letters at this time are said to show traces of this somnolence, and 
her pen has made great zigzags over the paper, as if she had fallen asleep 
while writing. 



MADAME 285 

to the will of the Almighty, and quite calm, whatever 
happens. I neither desire nor fear death.' ' When I am 
seated,' she says a little later, ' I feel no discomfort, but as 
soon as I walk at all quickly I get out of breath, and the 
doctors fear an attack of apoplexy or dropsy.' By and by 
her left side swelled and breathing became difficult. In 
consequence of these symptoms she was obliged for a con- 
siderable time to place herself unreservedly in the hands 
of the doctors, and this must have been a sore trial ; for 
Madame had inherited her father's disbelief in the pro- 
fession, and considered the French doctors the most 
ignorant of all. Their favourite remedies inspired her 
with no confidence, and, not without reason, she ascribes 
the death of many of her friends and relatives to the 
excessive way in which they were bled. 'Hands off!' 
was accordingly the maxim on which she usually acted in 
dealing with her own medical advisers, and for the 
ordinary ailments of life she doctored herself. Like most 
people who distrust the experts, she had a touching belief 
in the infallibility of her own remedies. ' Milady Kent's 
powders ' taken as snuff cured nettlerash ; taken inter- 
nally, they were good for small-pox. English drops 
(made of opium, asarum, and sassafras) were excellent 
for the chest. Baume d'Augshourg cured headaches. 
Pommade divine was another universal remedy. ' In two 
days and a night it cured my sprained wrist : it is a 
precious thing ; when I am feverish I rub my stomach 
with it, and when I have a cough I rub my chest.' Her 
ideas of anatomy were crude, and her diagnoses sometimes 
startling. ' When Mile, de Valois (her grand-daughter) 
was quite a child I thought she would be pretty ; but I 
was much mistaken ; she has developed a great aquiline 
nose, which has spoiled her looks. I think I can guess 
what caused it. She was allowed to take snuff: that's 
what has made her nose grow so.' 



286 THE GEE AT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

Some of her remedies were exceedingly simple. 
* Another time you prick your finger with a needle,' she 
writes, ' cut the nail a little, put the wounded part behind 
the ear, and rub gently. I will guarantee that you won't 
have an abscess.' Nor was she averse to experimenting, 
though in a cautious, tentative way. ' I still have M. 
Belosi's elixir against gravel,' she writes to the Electress 
Sophia. ' It is said to be a certain remedy, and has saved 
a number of people here. I sincerely hope it will cure 
you too. It is said not to be violent in its effects. But, 
when you have got it, try it first on others ; in this way 
you will easily see what effect it has.' And, in her experi- 
ments, she knew where to draw the line. ' I never allow 
myself,' she says, ' to be rubbed with human fat : it is too 
disgusting.' 

From her illness Madame slowly recovered, but the 
year^ was a peculiarly fatal one to the French royal 
family, witnessing, as it did, the untimely death of both 
the Duke and Duchess of Burgundy. For the duke 
Madame had always had a great respect, tempered at 
times by a touch of contemptuous pity for his excessive 
asceticism : * virtuous, just, and able,' was her summary 
of his character. Towards the duchess her feelings had 
been less cordial ; but in the years that immediately pre- 
ceded her death the young Dauphine had done a great deal 
to break down Madame's dislike, and the part she had 
played in promoting the Due de Berry's marriage had 
been much appreciated by the elder lady. In the August 
of 1711 Madame had written : ' I assure you, it is not 
without reason that the Dauphin is so praised — he deserves 
it. The Dauphine, too, is beginning to make herself 
loved by everybody through her politeness.' (As a matter 
of fact, of course, she had been very popular from the 
first.) ' Last Monday I was invited to dinner with them. 

» 1712. 



MADAME 287 

Nobody could have been politer than they were ; they 
helped me themselves. There weie a dozen ladies present, 
and they spoke to all of them.' 

But, apart from the natural grief which the mere sud- 
denness of the calamity was certain to provoke in a heart 
so human as Madame's, the event was fraught with a 
peculiarly poignant and personal sorrow ; for it involved 
her son in an odious suspicion which years could hardly 
dissipate. At that time any sudden and inexplicable 
death was sure to be attributed to poison ; and, as the 
medical knowledge even of the best doctors was limited, 
deaths which we can now see to have been due to natural 
causes were regarded as suspicious. That suspicion should 
have fastened on the Due d' Orleans can surprise nobody. 
He had, conceivably, something to gain from the crime ; 
he dabbled in chemistry, a science which was regarded 
with much disfavour ; he openly professed his contempt 
for all religion and morality ; and his life was ostenta- 
tiously dissolute and depraved. But, with all his faults, 
he was not a man to commit a murder ; and his political 
actions were generally characterised by a good-natured 
and easy tolerance that is not incompatible with sensuality. 
He had many of the qualities of our own Charles II and 
none of the devilry of the Borgias, and those who knew 
him best knew him to be incapable of so horrible a crime. 
' I am sure of his innocence,' writes Madame ; ' I would 
put my hand into the fire for it.' Fortunately, the king 
was of the same way of thinking, though, according to 
Saint-Simon, Madame de Maintenon tried to persuade him 
to the contrary ; and no doubt it was partly to discourage 
malicious rumours and partly to show his confidence that 
Madame was admitted at last to what she calls ' le 
sanctuaire ' — that is to say, the select family group that 
was privileged to share the king's leisure hours. She 
makes no secret of her satisfaction. ' I am glad,' she 



288 THE GEEAT DAYS OF VEESAILLES 

writes, * that I have been admitted to the " sanctaary " for 
two reasons. First, it is the only ]Dlace where one can talk 
to the king, and for me, who love and respect him, it was 
painful to be only able to speak to him at an audience. 
Secondly, it seemed to be a real disgrace to be the only 
member of the royal family who was excluded.' 

It was a sad party that assembled in the royal cabinet 
to cheer the closing years of the much tried king. ' We 
talk a great deal of the past,' says Madame, ' but not a 
word of the present, nor of the war, nor of the prospects 
of peace. We don't mention the three ^ Dauphins, nor the 
Dauphine either, so as not to turn the king's thoughts on 
to them. As soon as he mentions them I begin to talk of 
something else, pretending not to have heard.' And, a 
little later, she writes : ' I don't say much to the king. 
The Comte de Toulouse tells him about his hunting, and 
describes how he is arranging his houses and dealing with 
his forests. His Majesty also talks to the princesses 
about their houses. I put in a word now and again. The 
king is good enough to inquire about my health ; I tell 
him, and sometimes manage to make him laugh.' One 
can well believe that an account of Madame's ailments 
and cures, however humorously told, was a poor substitute 
for the cheerful prattle of the Duchesse de Bourgogne. 

For Madame, 1714 was almost as sad a year as 1712, 
In May she sat by the death-bed of the Due de Berry. 
' It is a mercy for me,' she says naively, ' that the duke 
had long ceased to care for me ; otherwise I should be 
inconsolable.' Still, the memory of days when he had 
been ' Madame's Berry,' ' the dear little duke ' who could 
always make her laugh, made his sudden death a very real 
grief ; and only a month later she was mourning for the 
aunt, the friend of her childhood, the Electress Sophia of 

' Namely, Monseigneur, the Due de Bourgogne, and the little Due de 
Bretagne. 



MADAME 289 

Hanover. ' Our loss,' she writes to her half-sister Louise, 
' is immense ; I can't stop crying. . . . The dear Electress 
was my one consolation in the countless sorrows that have 
assailed me. When I had told them to her and received 
her answer, I felt consoled. And now I feel as if I were 
alone in the world. I believe God has sent me this afflic- 
tion to take away my fear of death, for certainly I shall 
now die without a regret.' 

The year closed with a great fright, which, fortunately, 
proved nothing worse. In December she writes : * I was 
sitting in my study after dinner when a valet of my son's 
came running in, pale as death, and crying, " Ah ! 
Madame, Monsieur is so ill that he has fainted dead away." 
I jumped up and ran up the stairs. What frightened me 
so was that, when he was only four, my son had had a 
real attack of apoplexy, and, as these attacks are very pre- 
valent just now, I expected to find him dead . . . but it 
was only a fainting fit, due to the fact that, though he had 
a fearful cough and a heavy cold, he had been guzzling 
and swilling with his daughter [Mme. de Berry] ; for that, 
alas ! is what is always happening now in that quarter.' 

Eight months later came the end of the long reign 
which had begun so brilliantly and closed in such dis- 
appointment and gloom. Louis was dying by inches in 
the great gilded chamber that looks on to the Gour de 
Marbre. ' He sent for me,' writes Madame, * for the 
Duchesse de Berry, and all his daughters and grand- 
children. He said good-bye to me so tenderly that I am 
still wondering why I didn't faint. He assured me that 
he had always loved me, more perhaps than I had 
imagined, and that he was sorry that he had sometimes 
given me pain. I threw myself on my knees, seized his 
hand and kissed it, and he kissed me. Then he spoke to 
the others and exhorted them to be united. I thought he 
meant it for me, and replied : " In that I will obey your 

u 



290 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

Majesty as long as I live." He turned to me with a smile, 
and said, " I wasn't speaking to you, for I know that you 
don't need to be warned : you are much too sensible. I 
meant it for the other princesses. ..." The king showed 
a firmness that baffles description. Twice he remained 
for twenty-four hours without speaking to anybody ; he 
was praying all the time and repeating incessantly, " My 
God, why dost Thou not take me?" ' 

The last seven years of Madame's life belong to the 
Eegency and lie outside the scope of the present volume. 
As mother of the Eegent she occupied a much more un- 
assailable position than she had enjoyed as sister-in-law 
of the king ; but, true to her principles, she never took 
advantage of it to intrigue for political power or to meddle 
in state affairs. To the last she kept up a close corre- 
spondence with the half-sister whom she hardly knew in 
the flesh, but who personified the family ties which had 
always retained such a strong hold on her imagination. 
We will leave her with the touching words which she 
wrote from her death-bed in 1722. ' May God convert my 
son ! It is the only joy that I ask of Him for myself. . . .' 
* But I must finish, dear Louise : I am too ill to write 
more to-day. However wretched I am, and until I receive 
the coup de grace, I shall always love you, dear Louise, 
with all my heart.' 



291 



CHAPTEE X 

MONSEIGNEUE, THE GEAND DAUPHIN 

Birth and character — Education — Becomes his own master — His amuse- 
ments — The Dauphine — Mile. Choin and the ' Parvulo ' of Meudon — 
His indigestion — His indifference— Illness and death — Scene at 
Versailles — Funeral— The king receives visits of condolence at Marly. 

MoNSEiGNEUE, named Louis like his father, was born on 
November 1, 1661, and was the only one of six children 
who reached maturity. In infancy and early childhood 
he was delicate and had frequent attacks of fever, which 
more than once gave grounds for serious alarm. But he 
survived these early ailments and lived to enjoy a robust, 
if indolent, manhood. 

If Monsieur had been the victim of neglect, Mon- 
seigneur may be said to have suffered from excessive 
attention. No prince was ever surrounded in childhood 
by men of higher character, or offered greater facilities for 
acquiring culture. Montausier was his gouverneur and 
Bossuet his tutor ; and the studies he pursued under their 
direction included Latin, geography, philosophy (moral 
and political), rhetoric, logic, physics, anatomy, drawing, 
and the art of war. A famous collection of Latin authors 
was made for his use ; the still more famous ' Biscours 
sur VHistoire universelle,' and the ' Connaissance de Dieu 
et de Soi-me?ne,' were written for his instruction.^ Un- ■ 
fortunately, in elaborating their scheme of education, his 

' Both by Bossuet. 

u 2 



292 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

pastors and masters forgot to take into consideration the 
quality and capacities of the mind with which they were 
deaHng, and, in their anxiety to pile on knowledge, they 
suffocated the feeble spark of intelligence and will that 
glowed within the pupil's brain. The results are best 
described in Saint-Simon's words. 

' Monseigneur was neither vicious nor virtuous ; entirely 
devoid of intelligence or knowledge and incapable of ac- 
quiring them ; very idle, without imagination or activity, 
taste or discernment ; born to ennui, which he imparted to 
others ; a rolling stone which received its momentum 
from others ; excessively obstinate, and small in every- 
thing ; credulous and easily prejudiced ; surrounded by 
the most pernicious influences, and incapable of freeing 
himself or realising that he needed to be freed ; absorbed 
in his fat and his mental obscurity, and a man who, without 
any wish to do harm, would have been a pernicious king.' 

Such was the man who emerged from one of the most 
conscientious attempts ever made to fit a future monarch 
for the performance of his high duties. The Court, not 
without reason, laid much of the blame for failure on the 
shoulders of Montausier, the supposed original of Moliere's 
' Misanthrope,' a man who was known to the people as 
the courtier ' who always speaks the truth.' Montausier 
had been brought up as a Huguenot, and when, at the 
age of thirty-five, he joined the Eoman Cathohc Church, 
he did not abandon the austere and rather dour views of 
life which were characteristic of Calvinism. At the Court 
he enjoyed the reputation of saying disagreeable truths 
which were only tempered by an unconcealed admiration 
for the monarch. "With his pupil he was extremely frank. 
One day he took him to a poor cottage, made him enter 
and survey the squalid surroundings, and, pointing to the 
occupants, ' Look,' he said, * at the unhappy people who 
are living in this hovel : all of them, father, mother, and 



MONSEIGNEUR, THE GRAND DAUPHIN 293 

children, work unceasingly from morning till evening to 
pay the gold with which your palaces are gilded : they 
endure hunger to supply the luxury of your table.' Un- 
compromising himself, Montausier would not allow others 
to flatter the young prince ; the Dauphin was forbidden to 
read the laudatory dedications of the books presented to 
him, and his body was subjected to a rigorous discipline ; 
all dainties were banished from his table, and, in spite of 
protests from the doctors, the child was compelled to 
observe the fasts of the Church in their minutest detail. 
Unfortunately, Montausier had none of the personal 
qualities which might at least have won his pupil's respect 
for these stern principles. He was conscientious but a 
tyrant, incapable of sympathy, intolerant of failure, and a 
firm believer in the rod. Few princes, outside Prussia, 
have been more consistently beaten than the Grand 
Dauphin. Dubois^ relates a scene which happened on 
August 4, 1671 — i.e. when the child was ten years old. 
The Dauphin, who had already been beaten in the morn- 
ing, was saying his Oraison dominicale in the evening, 
and had twice made the same mistake. ' Thereupon M. 
de Montausier rose, took the Dauphin by both hands, 
dragged him into the schoolroom, and there gave him 
five cuts, with all his might, on each of his hands. The 
dear child shrieked terribly, and I wept with all my heart 
at seeing such cruelty. . . . The next day he showed me 
his hands, which were quite purple, and bruises on his 
arms.' 

Montausier, whose sense of duty if narrow was stern, 
seldom left his charge : he accompanied the boy at his 
games, watched him at his lessons, and even slept in the 
same bedroom. One can easily understand what a crush- 
ing effect the constant presence of this man must 
have had on a child who was naturally timid as well as 

' Valet de chambre to the Dauphin. 



294 THE GEEAT DATS OF VERSAILLES 

indolent, and it is not surprising that the rare absences of 
the gouverneur were hailed by the pupil with extravagant 
demonstrations of joy. But it was advisable not to demon- 
strate prematurely. On one occasion Montausier was 
starting for Paris, and the Dauphin, who was just begin- 
ning his last lesson for the day, expressed his joy at the 
deliverance by sounds which penetrated beyond the school- 
room. Montausier came back, gave his pupil three cuts 
with the ferule, and then started on his journey. 

Bossuet, who was appointed tutor in succession to 
Perigny in 1670, was a man of a very different stamp. 
Learned, eloquent, and kind-hearted, he lacked, however, 
the intuition which gave Fenelon his extraordinary influ- 
ence over children. In spite of the most praiseworthy 
attempts, he could never stoop to the level of the slow and 
immature mind which he had been set to cultivate. He 
would have made a splendid * coach ' to a clever student, 
but he was ineffective as tutor to a stupid child. The 
Dauphin respected but never loved him, and, realising that 
he was less formidable than Montausier, sometimes took 
liberties with him. One day, when the absence of Mon- 
tausier had made the Dauphin unusually merry, he came 
into the schoolroom with a little dog in his arms and 
tried to make Bossuet kiss it ; and, in the struggle which 
ensued, Bossuet' s hat was knocked on to the ground. The 
incident is a trivial one, but serves to illustrate the 
perennial perplexity of a certain type of serious and 
learned man in the presence of impertinent and inconse- 
quent boyhood. While Bossuet was pouring out his 
eloquence and learning, his royal pupil was registering a 
vow that when he was his own master he would never 
open another book. The vow was faithfully kept, and, his 
schooldays over, the Dauphin never read anything more 
exhausting than the Paris article in the Gazette de France, 
which contained the deaths and marriages. 



MONSEIGNEUR, THE GRAND DAUPHIN 295 

In 1680, at the age of nineteen, the Dauphin became 
* his own master,' and used his freedom to settle down to 
a Hfe entirely destitute of ambition or useful activity. 
This self-effacement was not unpleasing to Louis XIV. 
No autocrat ever had a more complaisant son and heir. 
The Dauphin had been taught from earliest childhood to 
regard his father with almost superstitious reverence, and 
the feeling lasted till his death. He was admitted to the 
councils of state, but he took no interest in the business 
transacted there and never tried to influence affairs. On 
the rare occasions when he ventured to differ openly from 
the king the subject was never one of intrinsic impor- 
tance. In 1707 Madame de Maintenon wrote : * I had the 
misfortune to be present at a conversation between the 
king and the Dauphin which pained me extremely. I 
pass my life in trying to keep them united and in avoiding 
anything which might produce a misunderstanding between 
them, and now I see them ready to quarrel over a trifle. 
Monseigneur wanted to give a public ball to which every- 
body was to be admitted, and insisted that the Duchess of 
Burgundy (his daughter-in-law) should be present. The 
king replied with charming gentleness that he could not 
consent, and pointed out that, if the duchess was to be 
present, it would be most improper that all sorts and con- 
ditions of men should be there too. The duchess herself 
was quite prepared to go, for it makes no difference to her 
whether she dances with an actor or a Prince of the 
Blood. I can't tell you how much this little squabble has 
troubled me. ... I fear all the causes for dissension that 
might so easily arise between a king of sixty-six and a 
Dauphin of forty-six.' 

However, Madame de Maintenon's fears were ground- 
less. In all essentials Monseigneur was a model of sub- 
missiveness and acquiesced without a murmur in the 
total lack of influence which was his portion. In return 



296 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

his debts were paid out of the royal coffers and the purse- 
strings never tightly tied ; in fact, the Dauphin enjoyed 
an income of 50,000 francs a month. 

His personal appearance was not unpleasing, though his 
face lacked character. Saint- Simon, who excelled in word- 
painting, has left us a vivid description of him. ' He was 
rather above the medium height, very fat, but not obese, 
with a noble and distinguished air that had nothing repel- 
lent in it, and his face would have been handsome if his nose 
had not been accidentally broken by the Prince de Conti 
when, as children, they were playing together. He was fair- 
haired ; and his face full and weather-beaten : he had the 
finest legs imaginable and singularly small feet. He felt his 
way as he walked, and put each foot twice to the ground ; 
he was always afraid of falling, and if the road was not 
perfectly level he required assistance. He looked well on 
horseback and had a perfect seat, but he was a timid 
rider. He made Casau ride ahead of him when he was 
hunting, and if he lost sight of him he was helpless. He 
seldom went faster than a hand-gallop, and often waited 
under a tree to see what would happen. . . . He was a 
great eater, like all the royal family, and very fond of the 
pleasures of the table ; but not indecently so. His cha- 
racter was nil. He had fair common-sense but no wit ; 
a natural dignity and an excessive obstinacy. He was 
gentle through indolence and a sort of stupidity ; hard at 
bottom, with a superficial good-nature which was chiefly 
reserved for valets and retainers : with them he was extra- 
ordinarily familiar, but, otherwise, indifferent to the suffer- 
ings or griefs of others ; and that rather through want of 
imagination than because he had a bad heart.' 

The first and most important duty of a Dauphin, when 
he had completed his education, was to secure the succes- 
sion to the throne, and the task of providing him with a 
wife became the chief preoccupation of the king and his 



MONSEIGNEUK, THE GEAND DAUPHIN 297 

ministers. The Dauphin showed himself deHghtfully 
accommodating. ' The king,' says Madame, * asked him 
whether he could resign himself to marrying an ugly 
woman : to which he replied that he really didn't mind. 
Provided that his wife were intelligent and virtuous 
he would be satisfied, no matter how ugly she were,' 
He was taken at his word, and Marie Anne Christine 
Victoire, Electoral Princess of Bavaria, became his bride 
in 1680. 

The new Dauphine was not designed by nature to 
shine at the French Court. 'If she has wit,' the king 
had said, 'I shall rally her about her plain looks.' But 
poor Marie Anne, ' ennemie de la medisance et de la 
moquerie,' ^ was not the kind of person to understand 
French raillerie or even to appreciate the better side of 
the French character. The very language was a stumbling- 
block, and the title of her husband became in her mouth 
' Monssigneur.' To Bessola, her maid and confidante, the 
only one of her German servants whom she was allowed 
to keep, she poured out her troubles in the beloved tongue 
of the Fatherland. The Dauphin had been prepared to 
like his wife ; but this unsociable and ailing woman was 
incomprehensible to him : he soon abandoned his efforts 
to please and sought cheap conquests among actresses on 
the Paris stage. The king tried long and patiently to 
draw his daughter-in-law out, and win her to the per- 
formance of the duties which her rank and position 
demanded. But Marie Anne, who was generally in bad 
health, shrank from publicity and hated the ceremonies 
which were the very foundation of Court life at Versailles. 
In the end, Louis confessed himself beaten, and, while 
remaining kind, ceased to be assiduous. Left to herself 
and a few friends, of whom Madame was one, the 
Dauphine passed a melancholy existence with Bessola in 
' Saint-Simon. 



298 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

laei petits appartements, which had 'neither air nor view.' 
Her malady, really consumption, was put down to a 
fanciful form of 'vapours,' and she used to say bitterly, 
' Ilfaudra que je meure pour me justifier.'' After ten un- 
happy years she died at Versailles in April 1690, leaving 
three sons, the Dues de Bourgogne, d'Anjou, and de Berry, 
none of whom was destined to sit on the throne of France. 
In spite of his heavy, unattractive mind, there were 
many ladies who would gladly have shared with the 
widower his splendid position. Madame had designs on 
him for her daughter ; but the Dauphin upset all calcula- 
tions by making a choice of his own, and in a most un- 
expected quarter. With an imitation, whose flattery was 
probably not altogether appreciated in high quarters, he 
determined to have his Maintenon, and he chose her 
among the maids of honour of the Princesse de Conti, 
his half-sister and intimate friend. Mile. Choin, niece of 
a certain Madame de Bury, will always remain one of the 
most mysterious personages in history. It was certainly 
not to beauty that she owed her power of charming. ' She 
was,' says Saint-Simon, ' a stout girl, squat, dark, ugly, 
with a flat nose.' However, her intimate friends de- 
scribed her as witty, modest, lively, unambitious, fond of 
the table and conversation. Why, being witty and un- 
ambitious, she should have cared for the Dauphin, or how, 
being ugly, she could have attracted him, remains an un- 
solved mystery. The one thing certain is that they were 
mutually drawn together and eventually married,^ though 
the exact year of the marriage is not known. The course 
of their love did not always run smoothly. In 1694, 
Mile. Choin, by order of the king, was dismissed from the 
service of the Princesse de Conti and bidden to withdraw 

' The fact that Mile. Choin was allowed to remain at Meudon while 
Monseigneur was dying, and the letter of the Due de Bourgogne to her after 
his father's death, are conclusive evidence on this point. 



MONSEIGNEUE, THE GEAND DAUPHIN 299 

to Paris. The reason given by Saint-Simon for this 
sudden banishment is too inherently improbable to be 
accepted without reserve, but it is quite possible that the 
king learned, through letters intercepted in the post, of the 
influence which Mile. Choin was beginning to exercise in 
the Dauphin's entourage, and determined to put a stop to 
it. In this, however, he failed. The Dauphin continued 
to visit Mile. Choin in Paris, where she lived at the house 
of her relative la Croix, a wealthy receveur des finances ; 
and, when he came into possession of Meudon in 1695, he 
used to bring her there incognito to share his frequent 
visits. A certain mystery was observed about her move- 
ments, which was kept up long after the secret of her 
position had become public property. On the eve of the 
Dauphin's arrival at Meudon she would leave Paris at 
nightfall, in a hired carriage, accompanied by a single 
femme de chamhre. At the Chateau she was lodged, at 
first in the Entre-sol adjoining the Dauphin's rooms, 
subsequently in a large apartment at the top of the house. 
She never appeared on public occasions and was seldom 
seen. In the early morning she crossed the house on her 
way to the chapel to hear Mass, and sometimes, in summer, 
she walked in the gardens at midnight to breathe the air. 
But her presence was a secret to nobody. The king made 
inquiries about her health, Madame de Maintenon visited 
her, and the intimates of Monseigneur, including his 
children, were, one by one, introduced to the private circle 
in which she ruled as Dauphine, and to which the courtiers 
of Versailles gave the name of the Parvulo of Meudon. 
There she occupied an armchair in the presence of Mon- 
seigneur, while the Duchess of Burgundy, whom she often 
scolded, had to be content with a stool : there, too, she 
spoke of her step-children as ' le Due de Bourgogne, la 
Duchesse de Bourgogne,' instead of * Monsieur le Due de 
Bourgogne' and 'Madame la Duchesse de Bourgogne,' 



300 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

and assumed the same privileges as were accorded to 
Madame de Maintenon at Versailles. 

Like Madame de Maintenon, too, she was singularly free 
from any desire to feather her own nest. From the Dauphin 
she received only 1,600 louis cl'or a year. When he was 
expecting to be sent to command the army in Flanders, in 
1708, the Dauphin made a will in which he bequeathed 
a large part of his property to Mile. Choin. He apprised 
her of the fact and showed her a sealed letter containing 
full instructions, which was to be given to her in case 
anything happened to himself. Mile. Choin was much 
touched by this mark of thoughtfulness and affection, but 
assured the Dauphin that the income of 1,000 crowns 
which she had saved was enough for her personal wants, 
and forthwith insisted on his putting the will and the 
letter into the fire in her presence. In the same spirit, 
probably, though Saint-Simon assigns less disinterested 
motives, she refused, in 1709, a pension from the king and 
the offer of rooms at Versailles and Marly. Whatever 
her motives, she certainly had no desire to change her 
actual mode of life, and preferred Paris to the Court. As 
soon as Monseigneur left Meudon she returned to the 
house of la Croix, and led a quiet, unostentatious life, only 
visiting a few friends, and at times when she was certain 
of being the only guest. 

The question of the Spanish succession roused Mon- 
seigneur from his usual torpor. Charles II of Spain, by 
a will which had been the result of much dark intriguing, 
had bequeathed his crown to the Due d'Anjou, grandson 
of Louis XIV and second son of Monseigneur. To accept 
the legacy meant war, and France had need of peace. 
Nevertheless, the offer was a tempting one. At the 
council which met to decide the question the Dauphin, 
contrary to his habit, spoke warmly in favour of accep- 
tance, and, finally, turning to the king, said firmly but 



MONSEIGNEUR, THE GRAND DAUPHIN 301 

respectfully, 'that he took the liberty of demanding his 
inheritance, since he was in a position to accept it. 
That the crown of Spain was his by his mother's right, 
but that, to secure the peace of Europe, he would gladly 
yield it to his second son, but to no other.' 

The final decision was in conformity with his wishes, 
and he could talk proudly of ' the king my father, and 
the king my son.' * Never,' says Madame, ' have I seen him 
so much moved as on this occasion. He seems to rejoice 
from the bottom of his heart that his son is king.' The 
long and disastrous wars which were the result hardly 
affected him at all. 

The great events of Monseigneur's existence were few 
and far between, but 1701 was a year which was destined 
to mark deeply in his life and remain, ever afterwards, full 
of solemn and gloomy associations ; for it was the year in 
which he had his great attack of indigestion and believed 
himself to be dying. Like all the Bourbons, he was a 
mighty eater as well as a mighty hunter. On Saturday, 
March 19, the eve of Palm Sunday, he had come over to 
Marly from Meudon, and, at the king's supper, had stuffed 
himself with fish. After saying good-night to the king he 
had descended to his own apartment, which was on a level 
with the gardens, and, there, he had knelt down at his 
prie-Dieu before undressing. His prayers finished, he had 
risen from the prie-Dieu and seated himself in a chair to 
remove his clothes, when, all of a sudden, he lost conscious- 
ness. His servants, thoroughly alarmed, rushed upstairs 
for Fagon and a surgeon, and the king, disturbed at his 
prayers by the commotion, hurried by a private staircase 
to Monseigneur's room, where he was soon joined by the 
Duchess of Burgundy and other members of the Court. 

' They found Monseigneur, half naked, being walked. 
or rather dragged, up and down his room. He failed to 
recognise the king, who spoke to him, or any other of the 



302 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

spectators, but defended himself as well as he could against 
Felix the surgeon, who, in this emergency, and believing 
he was dealing with a case of apoplexy, ventured to bleed 
the sufferer as he walked. The operation was successful ; 
Monseigneur recovered consciousness and asked for a con- 
fessor. The king had already sent for the cure. The patient 
was given quantities of an emetic which was long in 
operating, but which at 2 a.m. produced prodigious results. 
At half-past two, as the danger seemed over, the king, 
who had been weeping freely, withdrew to bed, leaving 
instructions that he was to be called if any alarming 
symptoms should supervene ; but at 5 a.m. the doctors, 
reassured as to the patient's condition, cleared the room 
of visitors and left him to sleep. The Dauphin escaped 
with a fright and a week in bed ; during which he played 
at cards most of the time, or watched others play, and 
was visited twice daily by the king.' ^ 

His convalescence was marked by a strange scene. It 
was traditional for Paris to love its Dauphins, and Mon- 
seigneur enjoyed unusual popularity. His affability towards 
inferiors impressed the popular imagination and led to his 
being credited with many other excellent qualities which, 
unfortunately, he did not possess. The herring-women of 
the market determined to show their loyalty, and deputed 
four of their number to journey to Marly and inquire after 
Monseigneur's health. They were admitted to the sick- 
chamber ; one of them flung her arms round the patient's 
neck and kissed i him on both cheeks : the others contented 
themselves with kissing his hands. Bontemps, the king's 
premier valet, showed them over the Chateau and gave 
them dinner ; after which they were sent away with a 
handsome present of money from the Dauphin and the 
king. Part of it they spent in a sumptuous ' Te Deum ' 
at the Church of St. Eustache, the rest in an equally 

' Saint- Simon. 



MONSEIGNEUE, THE GRAND DAUPHIN 303 

sumptuous banquet. The sudden death of Monsieur in 
the same year helped to impress upon the Dauphin the 
gravity of the danger he had escaped. He abandoned 
his irregular life, and never again did he exceed at table. 

Meudon, where he kept his own pack of hounds and 
indulged an inherited taste for building, was the home of 
his choice. At Versailles or Marly he was bored and con- 
strained, and might be seen blowing on his fingers in a 
corner of the room, or looking round at the company with 
dull unquestioning eyes. At Meudon he was his own 
master and free to live the life that pleased him best, that, 
namely, of the least intelligent of country gentlemen. It 
was there, too, that the little Court, which looked to him 
as its chief, assembled to gossip and cabal. As Dauphin, 
Monseigneur was one of the least influential persons in 
the land, and any marked attention to his person a sure 
passport to the king's disfavour; but there were people 
who were prepared to play a waiting game and stake their 
all on the chances of his ultimate accession to the throne ; 
and, as the king began to show signs of age, the activity 
of the Meudon clique increased. The heart and soul of 
this small band was centred in four women — the Princesse 
de Conti, the clever and malicious Mme. la Duchesse 
(both illegitimate daughters of the king), and the two 
Lislebonnes, nieces of the crafty Vaudemont, whose 
character and appearance Saint- Simon sums up in the 
following words: 'Their virtue and their faces were 
alike imposing : the elder, simply dressed and without 
beauty, inspired respect ; the younger, beautiful and 
graceful, attracted ; both were tall and well made ; but 
anyone who had an eye could see that they exuded the 
spirit of the League at every pore. Neither of them was 
cruel for cruelty's sake ; on the contrary, they behaved in 
such a way as to banish all suspicion ; but, if their plans 
were crossed or their interests at stake, they were terrible.' 



304 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

These four women worked together in perfect harmony, 
content to defer the final struggle for supremacy till the 
day when supremacy would mean power. Among the 
men who formed, as it were, an outer ring round this 
inner core, were Vendome and his brother le Grand Prieur, 
M. de Luxembourg, and some others like d'Harcourt, the 
Chancellor, and the Marechal d'Huxelles, who took pains 
to conceal their divided allegiance from the royal eye. 

It was not the character or the conversation of the 
host which rendered Meudon attractive. ' Monseigneur,' 
says Madame, * doesn't really take pleasure in anything. 
He hunts nearly every day, but he's just as happy riding 
at a walking pace for four miles on end, without saying 
a word to a single soul, as he is at the most exciting 
run.' And, when he spoke, his conversation was neither 
sparkling nor original. ' The Dauphin,' wrote Madame, 
' remarked to me that if it freezes hard before St. Martin's 
day, the winter is not severe.' And again : ' The Dauphin, 
on his return from the Palatinate, said to me, "When 
you told me, Madame, that the hares and trout of the 
Palatinate were better than those of France, I thought 
that love of your country made you exaggerate ; but, since 
I have been to the Palatinate, I cannot eat our own hares 
or trout, and I see that you were right." ' 

Sometimes he would pass whole days in bed ; at others 
he would be dragged about in a chair, holding a cane in 
his hand and tapping his boots without saying a word ; 
or again, he would pass his afternoons in the gardens in 
the same silence, watching his builders at their work. * He 
is,' says Madame, 'the most incomprehensible man in the 
world. He isn't a fool at all, and yet he always behaves 
as if he were, through idleness and indifference.' 

Although, in his day, he had nominally commanded 
armies, he was extraordinarily indifferent to the success of 
his country's arms, even at the most exciting crises. ' For 



MONSEIGNEUE, THE GEAND DAUPHIN 305 

four days,' wrote Madame in 1695, 'we had been expecting 
news of a battle and we were mortally anxious. At last, 
on Tuesday, the long expected courier arrived. When we 
saw M. Barbesieux (Minister of War) on his way to the 
king's cabinet, we were all eager to know what had hap- 
pened. The Princesse de Conti went to find the Dauphin 
and said, " A courier has come, and M. Barbesieux is with 
the king : you ought to go and find out what has hap- 
pened." "I?" said the Dauphin, "I shan't go!" 
" Why not ? " asked the princess. " Because," replied the 
Dauphin, "I don't care what news he has brought." 
" But, Monseigneur," insisted the princess, "you see that 
everybody is anxious ; if you won't do it for your own 
sake, at least go and ask for news to please us." The 
Dauphin : " Do you wish me, ladies, to go and say to the 
king that you have sent me for the news ? If you do, 
I will go; but I shan't go on my own account." The 
princess : " Don't say that, Monseigneur. Why, Monsieur 
went to see the king the moment the courier arrived." 
The Dauphin : " That's because Monsieur is more inquisi- 
tive than I am." ' 

In 1708, when the expectation of a battle, which 
was to save Lille, kept everybody glued to the windows, 
he displayed the same extraordinary indifference. He 
happened to be present when Chamillart brought the king 
the harrowing tidings that Lille was invested by the enemy 
and read the despatch aloud. Half way through the 
reading the Dauphin was going off, but the king called 
him back to hear the end. When the letter was finished 
the Dauphin went off again without making a single 
observation. Entering the room of the Princesse de Conti 
he found there Mme. d'Espinoy, whose children had large 
estates in Flanders, and who had been intending to pay a 
visit to Lille. 'Madame,' he said with a laugh, 'how 
about your journey to Lille now ! ' and proceeded to tell 

X 



306 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

them that the place was besieged. The Princesse de 
Conti was shocked at this insensibiHty. One day, at 
Fontainebleau, in the same exciting year, the Dauphin 
was amusing himself by reciting to her a long list of 
strangely-named places in the forest. ' Mon Dieu, Mon- 
seigneur,' exclaimed the princess, 'what a memory you 
have ! And what a pity that it is only burdened with 
such trifles ! ' 

But, if the Dauphin was poor company, he was a useful 
pawn. The object of the cabal was to destroy the influ- 
ence of the eldest son, the Due de Bourgogne, with his 
father, and to parry the fascinations of the Duchesse de 
Bourgogne. The plan was only too successfully carried 
out. The character of the duke was of a kind that did 
not appeal to Monseigneur. Abstemious, almost ascetic, 
intelligent, and widely read, he was singularly out of place 
amid the somewhat primitive pleasures of Meudon ; and 
the humility and filial respect in which he was never 
wanting could not conceal the superiority of his character. 
Probably, too, the exceptional favour which the Duchesse 
de Bourgogne enjoyed with the king and Madame de 
Maintenon, and the hopes which the world was begin- 
ning to build on the high character and active mind of 
her husband, stirred some secret chord of jealousy in the 
heart of the lethargic Dauphin. He was easily prejudiced 
and easily led, and the cabal at Meudon took infinite 
pains to widen the incipient breach. The Due de Berry 
was pushed forward at the expense of his elder brother, 
and, though no intrigues availed to break down the affec- 
tion which subsisted between the two princes, they suc- 
ceeded in alienating the Due de Berry from his sister-in- 
law, and in poisoning the mind of the father ; and it 
became evident that, if Monseigneur survived Louis XIV, 
the Due and Duchesse de Bourgogne would be without 
influence or credit in the new reign. 



MONSEIGNEUR, THE GRAND DAUPHIN 307 

Things were in this unhappy state when the death of 
the Dauphin scattered the Farvulo of Meudon and put an 
end to their sinister intrigues. 

On the Wednesday in Easter week, April 8, 1711, 
Monseigneur had left Versailles for Meudon, taking with 
him the Duchess of Burgundy. On the way, at Chaville, 
they met a priest carrying the sacrament to a sick person, 
and, like good Catholics, knelt down to adore. On rising 
they questioned the priest, and learned that the sacra- 
ment was being taken to a man with small-pox. The 
Dauphin was supposed to have had the malady in child- 
hood, but in so mild a form that doubts remained as 
to the correctness of the diagnosis, and he himself had 
always been peculiarly apprehensive of falling a victim 
to the disease. He was much impressed by the incident 
of the journey, and said in the evening to Boudin, his 
chief physician, that he should not be surprised if he had 
got small-pox himself. On the following morning, the 
9th, he rose as usual, intending to hunt the wolf ; but, 
as he was dressing, he was seized with a sudden feeling 
of weakness, and fell back on to his chair. Boudin put him 
to bed, and the state of his pulse gave cause for consider- 
able alarm. The king was informed by Fagon of what 
had happened, but, as the doctor expressed no anxiety, he 
concluded that the malady was a trifling one and drove 
in the afternoon from Versailles to Marly. The Duke and 
Duchess of Burgundy, however, came over to Meudon 
and spent the day in the sick chamber there, only leaving 
it at nightfall to be present at the king's supper. On the 
following morning, the king, who had been frightened by 
the account they gave of the patient, set off for Meudon 
in person, intending to stay there so long as Monseigneur's 
illness lasted, whatever its nature might be. At the same 
time, as a measure of precaution, he forbade the Dues de 
Bourgogne and de Berry, and their wives, to accompany 

X 2 



308 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

him, and decided that only those members of the Court 
who had already had small-pox should be allowed to pay 
their respects to him at Meudon, if they desired to do so ; 
for there was to be no compulsion. Mme. la Duchesse, 
together with the Princesse de Conti, Mile, de Lisle- 
bonne, and Mme. d'Espinoy, were already at Meudon 
and were allowed to remain there as nurses. They took 
their meals with the king, who was shortly joined by 
Madame de Maintenon. 

The disease soon declared itself unmistakably as 
small-pox ; but, though it was necessarily serious in a 
man of fifty, the doctors gave repeated assurances that all 
was going on as well as possible. The king, who was 
lodged immediately above his son, saw him several times 
a day, worked with his ministers, held the usual councils, 
and drove for a few hours on the afternoon of the 13th to 
Marly, where he saw the Duchess of Burgundy. He had 
not seen Mile. Choin, himself, but was under the impres- 
sion that Madame de Maintenon had done so. The latter, 
however, had contented herself with sending polite excuses 
and expressing a hope that they would soon meet. Mile. 
Choin was frequently by the bedside of Monseigneur, but 
never at the same time as the king ; Madame de Main- 
tenon hardly budged from her own apartment. 

On Tuesday, April 14, it was generally supposed that 
Monseigneur was out of danger, and the faithful herring- 
women of the Halles sent a deputation of two to make 
inquiries. The envoys were admitted to the sick chamber, 
expressed their joy at the Dauphin's recovery, and 
announced that they were going to have a ' Te Deum ' 
sung in Paris to celebrate the event. * It is not time yet, 
my poor girls,' said Monseigneur, who had, from the first, 
taken a serious view of his own condition. As the after- 
noon wore on the illness began to take a wrong turn. 
The head and face became extremely swollen and the 



MONSEIGNEUK, THE GKAND DAUPHIN 309 

features almost unrecognisable, and the patient had fits of 
drowsiness in which he failed to recognise the Princesse 
de Conti. As night fell the symptoms became increasingly 
alarming, and Boudin proposed to Fagon that they 
should call in another opinion from Paris — a suggestion 
which Fagon indignantly scouted. Fagon, indeed, re- 
mained so obstinately optimistic that the king was left in 
complete ignorance of the impending crisis ; he had been 
pained and frightened by the appearance of the Dauphin 
in the afternoon, even to the extent of shedding tears, but 
had been completely reassured by the official bulletins, 
and he sat down to his supper without any feeling of 
special anxiety. Meanwhile, in the sick chamber, the 
doctors were applying the grands remedes without effect, 
and a general panic was spreading among the attendants 
and spectators, of whom the room was always full. The 
cure of Meudon, who was in the habit of calling for news 
every evening, found the doors all open and the valets 
in confusion. He entered the bedroom, and, grasping the 
situation, advanced unchecked to the bedside, seized the 
prince's hand, and spoke to him of God. The Dauphin 
was still conscious, though almost incapable of speech ; 
he stammered out a sort of confession, received absolu- 
tion, and almost immediately afterwards relapsed into 
unconsciousness. 

At 11 P.M. the agony began. Then, and not till then, 
the king was informed that Monseigneur was dying. 
Hastily rising from the table, he rushed downstairs. 
The Princesse de Conti met him in the ante-chamber 
and persuaded him not to enter the bedroom, where Pere 
le Tellier, the king's confessor, who had been summoned 
in addition to the cure, was vainly trying to rouse the 
dying man. Louis, overwhelmed by the suddenness of 
the calamity, sat down in a dazed condition on a sofa, 
where he was almost immediately joined by Madame de 



310 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

Maintenon ; and, together, they waited for the end. At 
11.30 Fagon came out to tell them that all was over. 
The carriages had been ordered some time before, and on 
receiving the fatal news the king, still dry-eyed and 
dazed, rose to go. On his way through the Court his 
progress was impeded by the officers and dependents of 
Monseigneur, who threw themselves at his feet with 
strange cries and besought him to have pity on them, as 
they had lost their place and would die of hunger. The 
king took no notice of this painful and unseemly demon- 
stration, but, seeing Pontchartrain, he told him to be 
present on the morrow at Marly for the usual council 
meeting. The first carriage that presented itself happened 
to be Monseigneur' s berime ; the king summoned another, 
and, entering it, drove off to Marly with Madame de 
Maintenon and his two daughters, the Princesse de Conti 
and Mme. la Duchesse, the latter of whom kept uttering 
piercing screams. 

At Marly, where this sudden return had not been 
expected, everything was in confusion. There were no 
candles, and the keys of the various rooms had been 
mislaid. The king waited for more than an hour in one 
of the ante-chambers, seated in a corner between Madame 
de Maintenon and the two princesses, and weeping freely. 
Such of the courtiers as had been able to follow showed 
their bad taste and their desire to be noticed by crowding 
into the room. At last the key of Madame de Main- 
tenon's bedroom was discovered, and the king was released 
from this ill-timed importunity. He stayed with his wife 
for an hour, and went to bed at about 4 a.m. 

Meanwhile, at Meudon, there had been a general sauve 
qui pent. Mile. Choin, who had been forgotten in her 
attic, was first made aware of her loss by the cries which 
filled the air. As soon as the king had gone, her two 
friends. Miles, de Lislebonne and de Melun, put her into 



MONSEIGNEUK, THE GEAND DAUPHIN 311 

a carriage and drove with her to Paris. The rest of the 
courtiers made off as best they could, some in carriages, 
some on foot. The servants spent the night wandering in 
the gardens or seeking shelter in the outhouses, and, 
within an hour of the king's departure, the Chateau was 
practically deserted. Only La Valliere and one or two 
valets, together with some Capuchin monks, remained to 
watch the corpse. But, in spite of open doors and 
windows, the state of the body was such that the watchers 
were compelled to withdraw to the terrace on to which 
the Dauphin's apartments opened, and the poor remains 
were hastily coffined on the following day without the 
embalming which was customary in the case of royalty. 

If a stranger had come to Meudon that night, he would 
have witnessed a scene not easily forgotten. The extensive 
gardens, fragrant with bursting buds and all the promise 
of spring, were haunted by dim shapes that flitted aim- 
lessly to and fro, from avenue to avenue and from bosquet 
to bosquet ; but the Chateau itself was plunged in utter 
silence and darkness, save for one room on the ground 
floor, where tall candles, placed in a row on either side of 
the bed, flickered in the draught and shot their uncertain 
rays into the night through the open windows. Outside 
this room, half in the light and half in the shadow, a 
small group of men was kneeling on the terrace, speaking 
in whispers or muttering prayers, while inside lay the 
disfigured corpse of the man who, only a few hours before, 
had been heir to the crown of France, the object of flattery 
and homage, and the centre of hopes, ambitions and 
intrigues. 

The news that Monseigneur was in extremis reached 
Versailles late on the Tuesday evening, when the Court 
was preparing itself for sleep. It fell like a thunderbolt, 
for all the reports received that day had been favour- 
able and the patient was considered practically not of 



312 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

danger. The death of a Dauphin was a catastrophe 
which called for unusual expressions of grief, and Ver- 
sailles rose to the occasion. The rumour spread from 
mouth to mouth and from room to room, and soon every 
man and woman in the palace was on foot and moving 
towards the state apartments of the late queen, where, in 
a small chamber behind the bedroom, the protagonists in 
the drama, the Dues de Bourgogne and de Berry, with 
their wives, had come together, stunned by the sudden- 
ness of the blow. In the outer rooms the lackeys and 
footmen, ' desperate at the loss of a master who seemed to 
have been expressly created for them,' ^ kept up one long, 
continuous moan. Further on, the main body of courtiers 
moved aimlessly about, ' sighing discreetly, praising the 
deceased Dauphin in broken phrases, and watching the 
faces of friends and foes in the hope of penetrating their 
secret thoughts.' In the inner sanctum, and seated on the 
same sofa, the Duke and Duchess of Burgundy were 
crying quietly together ; beside them the Due de Berry, 
a warm-hearted and impulsive youth who had loved his 
father dearly, was sobbing, or, as Saint-Simon puts it, 
' roaring ' so convulsively that the contagion of his grief 
spread to others and they burst into similar hysterical 
tears. ' His wife, roused by his cries from her sombre 
thoughts, would support him, embrace him, or offer 
him her smelling salts. Her own grief, though less dis- 
interested, was equally acute. She had plotted long and 
laboriously to undermine the influence of the Due and 
Duchesse de Bourgogne at Meudon, and the sudden shat- 
tering of her dreams of future ascendency filled her with 
rage and despair. Long spells of gloomy silence, broken 
by torrents of tears and by convulsive gestures, bore witness 
to the violence of her agitation. With good reason she 
felt herself on the edge of a precipice.' ^ 

' Saint-Simon. ^ Ibid. 



MONSEIGNEUR, THE GRAND DAUPHIN 313 

Into the midst of this scene of woe Madame, whose 
most respectable emotions seldom failed to provoke a 
smile, introduced a note of comedy. With characteristic 
reverence for etiquette, she had stayed to array herself 
in full court dress. ' She nov^^ came in howling, without 
exactly knowing why, flooded them all with her tears, 
embraced them, made the palace re-echo with her cries, 
and furnished the strange spectacle of a princess who 
dons the garb of ceremony to weep with a crowd of ladies 
who are all in the deshabille of the bedroom.' ^ 

Grief, like joy, is infectious. Even the Due d'Orleans, 
the future roioe Kegent, whose relations with the deceased 
Dauphin had latterly been more than strained, was swept 
off his feet. Saint-Simon found him weeping in his 
private cahinet, and expressed his surprise. * I am sur- 
prised myself,' replied the duke, * but the spectacle is a 
touching one. ... I know that my grief won't last long, 
and that, in a few days, it will be blunted by the recollec- 
tion of our quarrel ; but at present the ties of blood, rela- 
tionship, and humanity, all touch me, and my bowels are 
moved ' ; and, so saying, he went into a comer, put his 
head between his hands, and sobbed audibly. 

The Duchess of Orleans, his wife, had a strange and 
comic experience that night. She had withdrawn, with 
Mme. de Castries and a few other ladies, from the inner 
sanctum, where the princes were indulging their grief, to 
a neighbouring salon which was comparatively quiet. In 
this salon, as in the adjoining gallery, it was customary 
for some of the Suisses and floor-polishers to sleep ; and 
at a certain hour movable beds, provided with the regu- 
lation curtains, were brought in for their use. The duchess 
and her ladies had seated themselves close to one of these 
beds, and were discussing the many interesting problems 
which the Dauphin's death had raised, when Mme. de 

' Saint- Simon. 



314 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

Castries, who was leaning against the bed and had felt it 
moving, uttered a sudden cry, for she was of a nervous 
temperament. A moment afterwards a great bare arm 
lifted the curtains and revealed the astonished face of a 
Suisse, who had retired to his rest before the bad news 
reached Versailles, and who had slept tranquilly through 
the confusion. Half awake and half asleep, he eyed the 
company for a few moments with solemn surprise, and 
then, thinking probably that he was dreaming, dropped 
the curtains and turned over to continue his sleep. 

At last the Due de Beauvillier, who had been a silent 
spectator of this scene of royal sorrow, decided that the 
time had come to end it. The Due de Berry, who had 
already been undressed where he sat, was persuaded to 
withdraw, and retired with his wife to the latter's room, 
where they spent the remainder of the night in so 
hysterical a state that their doctors thought it necessary to 
sit up with them. The Duchess of Burgundy's bedroom 
was cleared of the invading mob, and she and her husband 
went to bed. Even then, custom and prudence required 
that their sorrow should be in some sort public ; so the 
curtains of the bed were left open, and several of the 
maids of honour slept on sofas in the room. When all 
further need for a public demonstration of their despair 
had been thus removed, courtiers and lackeys betook 
themselves to a well-earned repose, and soon the great 
palace at Versailles was wrapped in the silence of night. 

Mile. Choin, as has been already said, had driven off to 
Paris. There she was soon able to test the value of Court 
friendships. She had a pet dog, whose favourite food 
was rabbit heads. In the days of her prosperity her 
neighbour, the Marechal d'Huxelles, had been in the habit 
of providing the dog constantly with this delicacy, and 
of paying frequent visits to the mistress. With the death 
of Monseigneur rabbit heads and visits stopped abruptly. 



MONSEIGNEUK, THE GEAND DAUPHIN 315 

Other friends also fell off; but Madame la Duchesse, 
Mile, de Lislebonne, and Mme. d'Espinoy remained 
faithful. The king assured the widow of his protection 
and granted her a pension of 12,000 francs, and the 
Duke and Duchess of Burgundy both wrote letters of 
condolence. For ten or twelve years Mile. Choin con- 
tinued to lead in Paris the same quiet and unostentatious 
life that she had enjoyed at the height of her fortune, and 
in 1723 she died, carrying her secret with her to the 
grave. 

Owing to the infectious state of the body, the funeral 
of Monseigneur was shorn of all the customary pomp, and 
the leaden coffin was placed simply in one of the royal 
coaches, the glass of the front windows being first removed 
to secure the necessary room. The Dauphin had died 
between 11.30 and midnight on Tuesday, April 15. At 
seven o'clock on the evening of the following Thursday 
the funeral cortege started from the Chateau, accompanied 
by the cure of Meudon, the Due de la Tremoille, first 
gentleman of the chamber, the Bishop of Metz, chief 
almoner, some footmen, and twenty-four pages of the 
king carrying torches. At Saint-Denis the body was 
lowered at once into the royal vault without ceremony. 

On Monday, April 20, the king, who had wisely kept 
himself and all who had been present during the illness in 
quarantine, received the official visit of condolence from 
the Court at Marly. There were the usual squabbles 
about precedence and the usual scheming to secure a 
recognition of disputed claims. Some people thrust them- 
selves in front of their superiors, others wore garments to 
which they had no right. The Eohans advanced in single 
file, in order of seniority, till some maHcious courtiers 
wedged themselves into the column and spoiled the effect 
of this family procession. The king, standing by the 
table of his room, in ordinary dress and with his hat 



316 THE GEE AT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

under his arm, watched the long stream of mourners as 
they j&led past him, returned the salutes of the most 
distinguished, and could scarcely restrain a smile at the 
grotesque appearance and awkward movements of some 
ambitious nobodies who were ill at ease in their heavy 
and unaccustomed garments. 

When this long ceremony was over, the other royalties 
who claimed to be visited withdrew to their own rooms 
to receive their due. Mme. la Princesse posted herself 
adroitly in the exit from Mme. la Duchesse's apartment 
and trapped some of the more thoughtless of the retreating 
guests into paying her an honour to which she was not 
entitled — to her own exceeding satisfaction and the bitter 
mortification of her dupes. 

And, when it was all over, Monseigneur was forgotten ; 
except by a few who had hoped to use him as a stepping- 
stone to power, or who had discerned, or thought they had 
discerned, beneath his dull and indolent exterior the rudi- 
ments of an intelligence and the beatings of a human 
heart. 




MARIE-ADELAIDE. DUCHESSE DE BOURGOGNE. 

(From the painting by Santerre at Versailles.) 



317 



CHAPTEK XI 

THE DUKE AND DUCHESS OF BUEGUNDT 

The Duke as a child — His education— F^nelon — Marriage — Marie-Adelaide 
de Savoie — Her flirtations — Oudenarde — The Cabal of Meudon — 
Disgrace of Vendome — The new Dauphin and Dauphine— Their 
deaths in 1712 — The ' might-have-beens.' 

Quite apart from the tragic interest which attaches to his 
early death the Due de Bourgogne stands out as one of the 
most striking and fascinating personahties of his time. 
The short and rather frail figure, with the long oval face, 
the thoughtful eyes and the unruly brown hair, challenges 
attention wherever it appears on the canvases that line 
the walls of Versailles. There is a look of distinction on 
the features, a suggestion of fire as well as depth, which 
stimulate interest and enlist the human sympathies ; it 
seems almost possible to read in the face traces of that 
painful struggle by which the soul gained the mastery 
over the flesh, and which has stamped a naturally vivacious 
expression with a cast of seriousness that almost amounts 
to melancholy. 

Louis, Due de Bourgogne, who was born on August 6, 
1682, was, both morally and intellectually, the most gifted 
of the Bourbons ; one of those small men, with puny 
bodies and lofty minds, who, like William III, have made 
history. Had he lived to wear the crown and shape the 
destinies of his country, it is impossible to doubt that 



318 THE GEE AT DATS OF VERSAILLES 

the history of France would have been profoundly altered. 
People so different as Madame and Madame de Maintenon 
regarded him as a saint ; and thoughtful men like Saint- 
Simon, who cared more for politics than religion, looked 
to his keen and exhaustive intelligence as the one force 
that could stay the ruin of France. His premature death, 
just when he seemed on the threshold of his life's work, 
is one of the tragedies of history. 

Nevertheless, there was little in his early childhood 
to excite enthusiasm, and there was even a time when his 
disappearance from the scene would have been hailed by 
many as an unqualified blessing. Few children born to 
power have given juster cause for anxiety and alarm. 
"With an abnormally passionate nature and a consuming 
pride, the Due de Bourgogne inherited in an unusual 
degree the animal propensities of his race. This is how 
Saint- Simon, the friend and admirer of the man, described 
the character of the boy: 'He was born terrible, and his 
early youth made everyone tremble ; hard and passionate, 
even against inanimate objects . . . incapable of enduring 
the least opposition, even from the elements, without 
flying into a passion which almost tore his body to pieces ; 
excessively obstinate, and sensual in an abnormal degree. 
He was equally fond of wine and good cheer ; passionately 
fond of hunting, and music, which threw him into a sort 
of ecstasy ; he was also devoted to cards, at which he 
could not endure to lose, so that it was dangerous to play 
with him. In a word, he was the prey of every passion 
and the sport of every pleasure ; often savage and naturally 
cruel ; unfeeling in his jests and sallies, which were so 
pointed as to be overwhelming. He looked down from 
the clouds on other men, whom he regarded as mere 
atoms with whom he had nothing in common. Even his 
brothers, though he had been brought up with them on a 
footing of perfect equality, barely seemed to him to hold 



THE DUKE AND DUCHESS OF BURGUNDY 319 

the position of intermediaries between himself and the 
human race.' And, as an instance of his passionate nature, 
the same author mentions that * he would break the 
clocks when they struck the hour that called him to some 
uncongenial task, and fly into a mad temper when the 
rain interfered with a cherished plan.' Probably Saint- 
Simon paints in unnecessarily dark colours by way of 
heightening the subsequent contrast, but there can be no 
doubt that the childhood of the Due de Bourgogne seemed 
to foreshadow a Caligula or a Nero rather than a St. 
Louis. The change which transformed the arrogant, 
passionate, and sensual boy into the humble, patient, and 
almost ascetic man is a signal proof of the value of educa- 
tion, or rather an instance of the amazing influence which 
a really good man or woman can exercise over the heart 
of childhood ; and the triumph, humanly speaking, is the 
triumph of Fenelon. 

At the age of seven the Due de Bourgogne was taken 
out of the hands of the women, with whom his faults had 
been allowed to grow unchecked, and placed under the 
charge of a gouverneur and a tutor. It is to the eternal 
credit of Louis XIV that, when he had to provide for the 
education of his family, he brushed aside all personal pre- 
judices and selfish interests, and looked to merit alone as 
the guiding principle of his choice. To his son he had 
given Montausier and Bossuet ; in the case of his grandson 
he did even better, and his choice fell upon Beauvillier and 
Fenelon, 

The Abbe de Fenelon was one of those rare characters 
who combine with great intellectual gifts a sincerely 
Christlike spirit. Wise, tolerant, and gentle, his sym- 
pathies flowed out to all, but especially to children ; and 
his influence over his pupil was all the more unrestricted 
because the Due de Beauvillier, though officially his 
superior, was in reality his disciple, and the two saw eye 



320 THE GEEAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

to eye. The problem with which they were confronted 
was no easy one, and the exact proportions of gentleness 
and firmness necessary for its solution were hard to deter- 
mine. But the boy had two qualities which Fenelon 
was quick to divine, and which he made the lever of 
reform. In the first place, like most passionate children, 
the Due de Bourgogne was capable of deep affections, and 
his trust, once gained, was not easily forfeited. And, in 
the second place, he was endowed with a keen intelli- 
gence, a real thirst for knowledge, and a quickness of 
perception which, rightly trained, could not fail to be a 
powerful ally of the soul in its war against the flesh. Not 
only could he see and appreciate the essential beauty of 
goodness and the degradation of vice, but he could also 
receive and profit by an indirect rebuke which, given 
directly, would have proved too severe a strain on his 
passionate temperament. La Fontaine was called in to 
illustrate by his inimitable fables some of the most obvious 
faults of the young prince, and Fenelon himself followed 
the same method in the themes which he set his pupil ; 
and the pleasure which the boy felt at discovering for 
himself the point of these fables lessened the mortification 
of the rebuke. Sometimes the object lesson was acted 
rather than spoken. One day a workman was engaged in 
effecting some repairs in the prince's room, and the boy, 
with the inquisitiveness of childhood, began to examine his 
tools. Thereupon the workman, who had been coached 
in his part by Fenelon, pretended to fly into a violent 
passion. ' Off with you ! ' he cried, with threatening 
gestures. * If people come interfering with me I lose my 
temper and break every bone in their bodies.' The child, 
smarting under the outrage, rushed off to his tutor and 
demanded that the insolent man should be punished. 
Whereupon Fenelon remarked quietly : ' He's a good 
workman and his only fault is his temper. I am sincerely 



THE DUKE AND DUCHESS OF BUEGUNDY 321 

sorry for him and think that he deserves pity rather than 
punishment.' 

Unlike his father, the Due de Bourgogne never had to 
submit to corporal punishment. His v^as one of those 
fiery natures that must be coaxed, not beaten, into self- 
discipline. Moreover, Fenelon did not believe in the rod. 
When sterner measures than a reprimand were necessary, 
the culprit was condemned to a sort of solitary confine- 
ment. He ate alone ; his books were taken away as 
useless for one who had not known how to profit by them ; 
the servants were forbidden to answer his questions ; and 
everyone who approached him treated him with mingled 
pity and repugnance, as a poor half-witted creature. With 
most boys such a punishment would have been barren of 
results ; there are some who would even have enjoyed it 
as a holiday. But to the proud and sensitive nature of 
the little duke it was a severe trial, and never failed to 
bring about the necessary repentance. When the culprit 
had admitted his fault, the promises of reform were com- 
mitted to writing. ' I promise M. I'Abbe de Fenelon,' 
wrote the child on one such occasion, ' on the word of a 
prince, to do at once what he tells me, and to obey him 
the moment he forbids me anything ; and if I break my 
word I will submit to any kind of punishment and dis- 
grace. Written at Versailles, the 27th of November 
1689.— Louis.' 

By these and similar devices Fenelon, like a wise 
teacher, enlisted on the right side all the natural qualities 
of his pupil which were capable of being turned to account ; 
but for the transformation of this strangely diversified 
character he relied mainly on a wholly different force, 
the power of religion. Keligion to Fenelon meant, not 
merely external observances and a sound theology, but 
the Sermon on the Mount applied to daily conduct. How 
successful he was in inspirmg his pupil with the spirit of 

Y 



322 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

his creed the subsequent life of the Due de Bourgogne 
was destined to show. But the victory was not won in 
a day, and it needed infinite patience and tact, and, above 
all, an unfailing sympathy, to wean the arrogant child 
from his grosser faults. His first Communion marked a 
real epoch in his life. ' Ever since his first Communion,' 
said Madame de Maintenon in 1704, 'we have seen all 
the faults, which in his childhood gave us such fears for 
the future, gradually disappear. His goodness has gone 
on steadily increasing, and he has lived down nobly all 
the jests which were at first levelled against him. . . . 
What specially marks the solid character of his piety is 
the violence which he has to do to his nature in order 
to master his faults, and he has to hold himself in with 
all his might in order not to give way to his passions. 
But religion has so changed him that, from being violent 
and hot-headed, he has become gentle, calm, and sweet- 
tempered, and he keeps such a hold over himself that it 
is difficult to detect any traces of his original character.' 

If the young prince was surrounded by an atmosphere 
of sympathy and affection, his daily life was almost 
Spartan in its simplicity. Together with his two brothers, 
he was brought up in the south wing of the palace at 
Versailles. The young princes were allowed occasionally 
to listen to the music at appartement, but otherwise they 
were rigorously kept away from all Court ceremonies and 
entertainments. Their day began at 7.45 a.m., winter and 
summer alike. At 8.15 they heard Mass. Then followed 
a short visit to the king and the Dauphin ; after which 
they had lessons from ten till twelve. At noon they dined. 
There was another lesson in the afternoon, from three to 
five in summer, or from five to seven in winter ; they 
took supper at 7.45 p.m., and went to bed at 9 p.m. ; and 
this routine was not broken by any holiday. They were 
always allowed to satisfy their hunger, but their food was 



THE DUKE AND DUCHESS OF BUKGUNDY 323 

of the simplest. Strong wine and all delicacies were 
forbidden. Breakfast consisted of bread and water ; 
dinner, of beef or chicken, with water or a little vin 
ordinaire. In the afternoon they were given a crust of 
bread ; and supper resembled dinner. Every day their 
bodies were hardened by physical exercise. Trifling 
ailments, such as colds or coughs, were ignored, and, 
whether the day were wet or fine, they were accustomed 
to walk out of doors bare-headed.^ It will be noticed that 
comparatively few hours in the day were devoted to study. 
With a mind so precocious as that of the Due de Bour- 
gogne, who had to be held back rather than pushed on, 
the easy hours were a gain. Even these lessons were 
frequently interrupted, for it was Fenelon's habit, when- 
ever any interesting question arose, to drop the immediate 
subject of study and follow his pupil into by-paths. 
To stimulate interest, rather than to cram, was the prin- 
ciple of his teaching. Nevertheless, so rapid was the 
prince's progress that at eleven he had read and enjoyed 
Virgil, Homer, Horace, Livy, and part of Tacitus, and 
knew the geography of France ' as well as he knew the 
Park of Versailles.' He was not allowed to learn any 
musical instrument (though he afterwards taught himself 
to play on the clavecin) lest he should find the pursuit too 
absorbing ; and he was similarly checked in his study of 
science and mathematics, though, afterwards, when he 
became his own master, he corrected the omission. At 
thirteen he had begun philosophy, and at twenty he wrote, 
'Nothing pleases me so much as metaphysics and ethics.' 
By that time he was also deeply read in theology. He had, 
indeed, a real passion for knowledge and a quick but 

' At an early age the Due de Bourgogne showed signs of a slight 
curvature of the spine, which, to a certain extent, disfigured him for life, 
and he was condemned to wear an iron apparatus in the shape of a cross, 
which was intended to straighten the spinal column, but which tortured 
without curing. 

T 2 



324 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

patient mind, and, to the day of his death, he was still 
learning. 

In 1695 the daily intercourse between tutor and pupil 
was interrupted, for Fenelon was raised to the Arch- 
bishopric of Cambrai, and, though he still continued to 
direct the studies of the prince, the new prelate was kept 
in his diocese for the greater part of the year by his official 
duties. Two years later the separation became complete. 
His ' Maximes des Saints,' his ' Telemaque ' (in which 
Louis XIV found the condemnation of his own pohcy), 
and, above all, his relations with Mme. Guyon, had cost 
Fenelon the king's confidence, and on August 1, 1697, 
he received an order to v/ithdraw to Cambrai and to con- 
fine himself to his diocese. For the rest of his life he was 
in disgrace. 

The Due de Bourgogne was then barely fifteen, an age 
at which most boys find it very easy to forget. It says 
much for the extraordinary hold which Fenelon had 
acquired over his pupil that neither time, disgrace, nor 
separation, could weaken the influence which he exer- 
cised. He had indeed tapped those springs of early affec- 
tion which a child is wont to bestow on its parents, but 
which Monseigneur either could not or would not discover 
in his son. The relations between tutor and pupil were 
almost those of father and child, and absence strengthened 
rather than weakened the bonds. 

Louis XIV had not only dismissed from the prince's 
service all the officers, with the exception of Beauvillier, 
-who had enjoyed Fenelon's special confidence, but had 
forbidden all communication between the ex-tutor and his 
former pupil. However in 1701 the Due de Bourgogne 
managed to bridge the gulf. 'At last, my dear Arch- 
bishop,' he wrote, 'I have an opportunity of breaking the 
silence of four years, I have suffered many things in 
that time, but the hardest of all has been that I could 



THE DUKE AND DUCHESS OF BUEGUNDY 325 

not tell you what I felt for you, and that my affection 
for you was being strengthened and not chilled by your 
misfortunes. ... I shall not tell you how indignant I 
am at all that has been done to you. Don't show this 
letter to anybody except the Abbe de Langeron, if he is 
actually at Cambrai, for I am sure of his secrecy. . . . 
Don't reply to it either, unless you can find some very 
safe way. . . . Good-bye, my dear Archbishop. I embrace 
you with all my heart. It will probably be a long time 
before I can write to you again. I ask for your prayers 
and your blessing.' 

But if, in view of the king's prohibition, direct corre- 
spondence was dangerous, there were other channels of 
communication ; and the Due de Chevreuse, brother-in- 
law and alter ego of the Due de Beauvillier, served as the 
intermediary. Through him, the Archbishop in his exile 
at Cambrai directed the life and studies of his former 
pupil quite as effectively and authoritatively as he had 
done in the days of his favour at Versailles. And the 
secret was an open one. 

After the final separation the Due de Bourgogne only 
set eyes on his beloved master three times (and then only 
for a moment) on his way to or from the army in 
Flanders, and under restrictions which made private talk 
impossible. Saint-Simon has left us an account of one of 
these meetings. In 1708 the prince was passing through 
Cambrai on his way to the fatal campaign of Oudenarde, 
and the Archbishop, together with a large crowd, had gone 
to the posting-house to meet him. The transport of joy 
with which the young prince greeted the tutor was too 
obvious to escape notice. 'He embraced him tenderly 
several times, and said aloud that he would never forget 
how much he owed him ; and, though he said nothing 
that could not be heard by all, he hardly spoke to anybody 
else ; and the intensity of the gaze which he fixed on the 



326 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

Archbishop, coupled with his first words, had an eloquence 
which thrilled all the spectators and more than made up 
for those private marks of affection which the king had 
forbidden.' 

In 1697, when he was fifteen years old, the Due de 
Bourgogne came under the other decisive influence of his 
life ; for on December 7 of that year he was married to 
Marie-Adelaide, the twelve-year-old daughter of the Duke 
of Savoy. The match was political, and the husband had 
little or no voice in the selection of his bride ; but, if he 
had enjoyed the unfettered choice of a private individual, 
the Due de Bourgogne could not have done better. From 
the day of his marriage to the day of her death he was 
deeply, almost madly, in love with his wife. The princess 
had been brought to France in the autumn of 1696 to be 
trained for her future high position. Self-possessed, but 
frank and affectionate, she had won all hearts from the 
moment of her arrival. The king, who had gone to 
Montargis to meet her, described his first impressions in 
a letter to Madame de Maintenon : ' She has the most 
graceful and perfect figure that I have ever seen ; her 
dress and hair are like a picture; her eyes bright and 
very handsome, with admirable dark eyelashes ; her com- 
plexion smooth, and as pink and white as heart could 
wish ; and she has the most beautiful brown hair that 
you can imagine, and in great quantity ; her mouth is red, 
her lips large, her teeth white, long, and very irregular ; 
her hands are well shaped, but of the colour of her age. 
I am extremely pleased with her, and I hope you will be 
so too when you see her.' 

Madame de Maintenon, who was naturally fond of 
children, was not likely to be impervious to the charms of 
this winning girl who called her ' ma tante ' at their very 
first meeting and treated her with mingled affection and 
respect. * Your Koyal Highness,' she wrote to the Duchess 



THE DUKE AND DUCHESS OF BURGUNDY 327 

of Savoy, ' will hardly believe how pleased the king is. 
Yesterday he did me the honour to say that he will have 
to be careful in what he says or people will think that he 
is exaggerating. . . . She has a natural courtesy which 
makes it impossible for her to say anything unkind. 
Yesterday I tried to resist her caresses, saying that I was 
too old, to which she replied, " Ah /point si vieille ! " She 
came up to me, when the king had left the room, and kissed 
me. Then she made me sit down, having noticed at once 
that I cannot stand, and, almost seating herself on my 
lap, she said in a coaxing voice, " Mamma told me to give 
you a thousand messages from her, and to ask for your 
friendship for myself. Please tell me what I must do to 
please you." Those are the words, Madame; but the 
gaiety, the gentleness and grace, with which they were 
accompanied, cannot be put on to paper.' 

A few suspicious souls, such as Madame the Princess 
Palatine and Saint-Simon, saw in this childish grace a 
piece of consummate acting, the result of clever training 
and of a precocious talent for diplomacy. But, in reality, 
the little princess's only art consisted in being artless. 
Saint- Simon himself gives the key to her success when he 
says : ' She was kind to everybody, even to the least influ- 
ential and the most unimportant, without any appearance 
of conscious effort. One was tempted to think her 
wholly devoted to the people with whom she happened to 
be for the moment.' Young, active, high-spirited, light 
and graceful as a nymph, she was the life and soul oi fetes, 
spectacles, and dances, and seemed to be in half a dozen 
places at once, imparting gaiety and movement wherever 
she went. And with this lively and affectionate disposi- 
tion, full of the joy of life and wholly free from malice, she 
combined the rare gift of being absolutely spontaneous 
and natural. Is it surprising that in the most malicious 
and artificial Court in Europe she became a universal 



328 THE GEEAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

favourite, the idol of young and old ? A bust by Coysevox, 
in the bedroom of Louis XIY (a replica of the full-length 
statue in the Louvre) gives us some idea of the woman 
who exercised so powerful a charm over her contem- 
poraries. The face is almost boyish in its frankness and 
vivacity, and the expression, without being exactly hand- 
some, is singularly attractive. A portrait by Santerre in 
the Salle des Gardes de la Heine gives to the same features 
an air of greater dignity. 

Of the king, the young princess made an easy con- 
quest. She was, perhaps, the only person in France who 
was not afraid of him ; and Louis, beneath all his 
starch, had a human heart that craved affection. To be 
petted, teased, coaxed, and even scolded, was for him a 
new and delightful experience ; for his own children had 
been brought up in such awe of him that he knew nothing 
of the natural expansiveness of childhood. There was 
nothing that the princess did not dare. She would hover 
round him when he was busy, fling her arms round his 
neck, jump on to his knees, rummage among his papers, 
read his letters, and interrupt the most serious conversa- 
tion with her sallies. One day the king and Madame de 
Maintenon were discussing Queen Anne and the English 
Court. ' Ma tante,' said the irrepressible princess, ' one 
must admit that in England the queens govern better 
than the kings : and do you know why, ma tante ? ' she 
continued, dancing about the room. ' The reason is that, 
where there are kings, women govern ; and where there 
are queens, men.' ' The strange thing is,' says Saint- 
Simon, 'that they both laughed and admitted that she 
was right.' 

To Madame de Maintenon the affection of this warm- 
hearted but irresponsible girl came as a ray of sunshine. 
If she was ill the Duchesse de Bourgogne nursed her. ' Our 
dear princess,' she wrote in 1704, when a heavy cold had 



THE DUKE AND DUCHESS OF BURGUNDY 329 

kept her to her bed, ' has been dining with me and show- 
ing me all the care that a good daughter could show to a 
dearly-loved mother.' When there were confidences to be 
imparted or troubles to be shared, it was to Madame de 
Maintenon that the princess came at all hours of the day 
or night. But the affection of the elder lady was not 
untinged with anxiety. She had the good sense to see 
that a character so full of spirit and vitality as that of the 
Duchesse de Bourgogne required exceptional treatment, 
and that the girl must have her fill of pleasure ; but, in 
Madame de Maintenon's gloomy philosophy of life, plea- 
sure ranked as a dangerous and unworthy thing ; she 
tolerated what she could not prevent, but she would have 
liked the future queen to be less frivolous. ' Our princess,' 
she wrote in 1706, * would be perfect if it weren't for 
lansquenet.'' Sometimes she even tried to persuade herself 
that the girl did not really enjoy life, but only pretended to. 
' Our princess does her best to amuse herself, but only 
succeeds in tiring and dazing herself. Yesterday she went 
to dinner at Meudon with twenty-four ladies ; they were 
to go to the fair afterwards to see some celebrated tight- 
rope dancers ; then they were to return to Meudon for 
supper, and doubtless they will have played cards till day- 
break.' And again she writes : ' Unless I am very much 
mistaken, the Duchess of Burgundy will be unhappy all 
her life. She has a sensitiveness, a self-respect, and a 
refinement of feeling, which are quite out of place in this 
country ; ' and yet again : ' Our princess tries to forget 
her cares; she walks, runs, rides, and drives, but her 
anxieties pursue her everywhere.' To be unhappy was, 
with Madame de Maintenon, a conspicuous sign of grace ; 
but, though the princess had her troubles at times and 
tried to drown them in dance and song, there can be no 
doubt that she found life, not a vale of tears, but a land of 
enchantment ; and, but for the vigilant eye which la tante 



330 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

kept upon her movements, her feet might easily have 
strayed after forbidden pleasures. 

Even as it was, she did not always avoid scrapes. Cards 
and gambling exercised a fatal fascination over her, and, 
as they were not a passport to the good opinion of the 
king or of Madame de Maintenon, the duchess often con- 
cealed her exploits from them so far as she was able. On 
one occasion an apparently innocent hunting luncheon 
had been converted into a card party, at which Madame 
la Duchesse and some not very reputable gentlemen had 
been present. The secret leaked out, and Madame de 
Maintenon, realising what loss of prestige and reputation 
might easily ensue from such escapades, was much 
troubled. ' The king,' she wrote to Mme. de Dangeau, 
' told me yesterday that he had been surprised to find 
the card-players at La Bretesche ; so I knew that the 
Duchesse de Bourgogne had been telling me stories. . . . 
The king said, " Wasn't a dinner, a ride, a hunt, and a 
picnic enough for one day?" Then he added, after 
thinking for a little, " I think I ought to tell these gentle- 
men that they do not pay their court to me in an acceptable 
way by playing cards with the Duchesse de Bourgogne." 
I said that I had always been afraid that her passion for 
lansquenet would lead her into some equivocal position 
which would do her harm. We then talked of other 
things, but the king harked back to the original subject. 
" Oughtn't I to speak to these gentlemen?" he said. I 
replied that, in my opinion, such a step would damage the 
Duchesse de Bourgogne, and that it would be better for 
him to speak to her and to keep the matter a secret. He 
told me that he would do so to-day. So here we are 
within sight of the quarrel which I have always dreaded. 
The king will think that he has wounded her by forbidding 
her lansquenet, and will be more distant to her ; and it is 
true that she will be angry and more cold to him. . . .' 



THE DUKE AND DUCHESS OF BURGUNDY 331 

But Madame de Maintenon's worst apprehensions 
were not realised ; for, if the princess was thoughtless, she 
was loyal in her affections. Here is a fragment of the 
letter which she wrote to la tante on the occasion : 

*I am in despair, ma chere tante, at always doing 
stupid things and giving you cause for finding fault with 
me. I am firmly determined to turn over a new leaf and 
not to play this wretched game again, which only damages 
my reputation and lessens your affection, which I value 
more than anything. I beg you, ma chere tante, not to 
speak to me about it, if I keep my good resolution. If I 
fail, were it only once, I shall be delighted for the king to 
forbid me the game, and I will endure all the humiliation 
that such a step would cause me. ... I am overwhelmed 
by all your kindness and by your sending me the money 
to help me in paying off my debts. ... I am miserable 
at having displeased you. I have abandoned God and 
He has abandoned me. I trust that, with His help, which 
I ask of Him with all my heart, I shall get the better 
of all my faults.' A very charming letter, which shows 
both the ladies in a most pleasing light. 

But Madame de Maintenon had another cause for 
anxiety, deeper and more permanent than anything which 
could arise out of cards. The Duchesse de Bourgogne 
did not return the passionate affection of her husband ; 
she tolerated it, but she could not pay it back in kind. 
In the eyes of the world they were a devoted couple; 
but the shrewd old lady could see below the surface. 
Eespect, rather than love, was the feeling which the 
duchess entertained for her husband ; and, at one time, 
respect was almost changed into contempt. The growing 
austerity of the prince, who kept, so far as he could, aloof 
from the pleasures of the Court ; who had abjured cards, 
given up the theatre and music, and sold his jewels for the 
benefit of the poor, and who refused to be present at a ball 



332 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

on the feast of the Epiphany, was not likely to appeal 
to the light-hearted Marie- Adelaide who had no leanings 
towards asceticism and found the world, as it existed, very 
good. She rallied her husband publicly on his piety, or 
played practical jokes on him, whose object was to place 
him in compromising positions ; and Madame de Main- 
tenon lived for a while in daily terror lest the young wife's 
indiscretion should reveal too clearly to a gossiping and 
intriguing Court that there was more of pity than love in 
her feelings towards her consort, and even more of scorn 
than of pity. 

And she did even worse than merely mock at her 
ascetic husband ; she entered upon the dangerous path of 
flirtation. Young, attractive, and brilliant, it was only 
human that she should wish to weave a little romance 
into her life and crystallise the admiration which she read 
in all men's eyes but which they dared not utter with their 
lips. There is no reason to suppose that she ever stepped 
beyond the bounds of modesty. Her fault, if fault it was, 
was only the natural vanity of a charming princess, who 
desired to hear from the lips of a favoured few the homage 
which would have been freely expressed if her station had 
been less exalted. But what might have been pardonable 
in a private individual was dangerous in a future queen, 
and the fright in which the experiment ended probably 
taught the duchess a useful lesson. 

Like others of her sex who have started on the career 
of conquest, she had two strings to her bow : Nangis, 
good-looking, polished, and brainless, a ladies' man of the 
approved Court pattern ; and Maulevrier, nephew of Colbert, 
ugly, but able and extremely ambitious. There were kind 
and sympathetic words for both of them, meaning looks, 
and even secret missives. Maulevrier, dazzled by his good 
fortune, and anxious to avoid active service which would 
have removed him from the Court, feigned a disease of 



THE DUKE AND DUCHESS OF BURGUNDY 333 

the chest and total loss of voice. He kept to his room 
and fed himself on milk ; and his pretended malady 
not only secm:ed him the sympathy which is due to 
an interesting invalid, but gave frequent opportunities 
for whispered conversations. The Duchess of Burgundy 
was an assiduous visitor, and the Court smiled over her 
prolonged interviews with the sick man. 

Unfortunately, Maulevrier was not content to rest on 
his laurels ; he was not only consumed with ambition, 
but also dangerously near the border-line of insanity, and 
the discovery that he had a rival in Nangis provoked him 
to a transport of passion. One day, seizing an opportunity 
when Dangeau was absent, he waylaid the princess as she 
was returning from Mass in the chapel, and offered his 
hand to escort her back to her apartments. The other 
equerries, out of respect for his position and infirmity, 
waived their claims to the honour and fell discreetly 
behind. Then, as they walked through the state rooms, 
Maulevrier whispered his suspicions to his terrified com- 
panion ; abused Nangis to her ; threatened to tell the 
king, Madame de Maintenon, and her husband ; and 
crushed her fingers in his iron grasp till she almost 
shrieked with pain. At last they reached the door of her 
apartments, and the princess, more dead than alive, fled 
to her garde-robe and summoned Mme. de Nogaret, her 
friend and confidante. Mme. de Nogaret advised her to 
deal prudently with this dangerous lover, and not to drive 
him to desperate measures ; and the advice was not un- 
necessary, for Maulevrier was doing his best to pick a 
quarrel with Nangis, and a public fracas might well have 
led to a scandal. Nangis, who trembled for his future, 
was careful to avoid his fire-eating rival ; but for six 
weeks the princess lived in continual dread of a cata- 
strophe. 

Meanwhile her friends had been busy, and at last 



334 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

Tesse, the father-in-law of the offender, intervened. He 
decided that, as the doctors had failed to cure the mysterious 
chest complaint of his son-in-law, the invalid should try 
the effect of a warmer climate, and took him off to Spain. 
The princess could now breathe freely, but a year later 
her terror was revived when Maulevrier, by this time 
really insane, returned to France and began to bombard 
her with threatening letters. The situation was becoming 
intolerable when the dangerous lover, in a fit of madness, 
threw himself from a window and was killed. 

Equally indiscreet was the princess's behaviour to 
the Abbe de Polignac, who also had to be shipped abroad. 
Madame, walking in the gardens of Versailles, found on 
the pedestal of a statue some verses on the subject, which 
were as intelligible as they were offensive. But it is an 
extraordinary testimony to the popularity of the princess 
that, though these episodes had been watched by a 
scandal-loving Court with amused and often cynical eyes^ 
there was a conspiracy of silence, and neither the king 
nor the Duke of Burgundy ever guessed the secret.^ 
Madame de Maintenon may have known all. If she did, 
the knowledge, though it must have added to her anxiety, 
did not diminish her affection. 

But in 1708 events occurred which did more to unite 
the husband and wife than the birth of their children 
or the death of their eldest son, and which, directly or 
indirectly, profoundly influenced the lives of both. In 
the spring of that year, at a time when the fortunes 
of France were at their lowest ebb, the Duke of Bur- 
gundy was despatched to Flanders to put heart into the 
army. Though personally brave, like all the Bourbons, 

' One cannot help contrasting this friendly silence with the very 
different treatment that was meted out to poor Marie-Antoinette, who had 
many of the Duchesse de Bourgogne's weaknesses and virtues, but not her 
power of attracting sympathy. 



THE DUKE AND DUCHESS OF BURGUNDY 335 

he had no genius for war, being essentially a student 
rather than a man of action; and, even if he had had 
the qualities of a commander, it was no light test to be 
pitted against Marlborough and Eugene. But, though 
nominally in command, the Duke of Burgundy was 
deprived of all real initiative, and carried written instruc- 
tions which forbade him to make any important move 
without the sanction of Vendome. Vendome was, at this 
moment, at the zenith of his fame. By exaggerating his 
minor victories in Italy, and carefully concealing his want 
of substantial success, he had acquired the reputation of 
being a military genius ; and his good fortune had trans- 
ferred him from Italy to Flanders before the crash came 
round the walls of Turin. Louis was infatuated with 
him ; and the Court and the nation, clutching eagerly at 
a straw, hailed him as the one man capable of saving his 
country and stemming the tide of disaster. In times of 
national crisis such reputations are not unfrequently 
achieved even by men who have no real claim to talent ; 
and, when once the vogue has been started, legend grows 
rapidly round the popular hero. Possessed of considerable 
military gifts, but slow, obstinate, averse to privations 
and energetic only by fits and starts, Vendome was not 
likely to prove a match for the active genius of Marl- 
borough and Eugene. But for the moment he filled the 
popular imagination. His slowness passed for caution, 
his obstinacy for strength, and even his coarse manners 
and filthy habits were pardoned as the harmless eccentri- 
cities of a plain, blunt soldier. His arrival in Flanders 
was greeted with enthusiasm, and all France waited with 
feverish impatience for the decisive blow which its hero 
was about to strike. But instead of victory came the 
defeat at Oudenarde, the fall of Ghent, and the humi- 
liating spectacle of Lille besieged by the enemy while 
the French army looked on in helpless inactivity. The 



336 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

country was angry and disillusioned. But, if Vendome 
was unable to win battles, he was skilful in shifting 
the odium of defeat on to other shoulders than his own ; 
and, for a while, the Duke of Burgundy had to bear the 
burden. 

It must be admitted that his conduct lent some colour 
to the accusations that were levelled against him. He 
was at a critical stage in his development, and had not 
yet learned how to reconcile the self-effacement, which has 
always been the ideal of Christianity, with the duties of a 
leader on the field. Fenelon had saved him from himself 
by teaching him to distrust his instincts and to trample 
remorselessly on every impulse that savoured of pride. 
The results of this training had been largely negative, and 
such positive qualities as it produced would have been 
more helpful to a monk in his convent cell than they were 
to a prince to whom Providence had assigned the stern 
task of commanding men. It may be the duty of a 
private individual to turn his cheek to the smiter, but it 
was hardly fitting that the heir to the French throne 
should bear patiently, and condone, the public affronts of 
a creature like Vendome ; for misplaced humility is liable 
to be branded as cowardice. Moreover, an active cam- 
paign is not a favourable time for religious exercises. The 
Due de Bourgogne attended Mass when he should have 
been studying maps, and prayed when he should have 
been giving orders. And his very amusements lacked 
dignity. Trained to regard with suspicion the ordinary 
relaxations of his age, and afraid of lapsing into sin, he 
took refuge in games that were more suitable for a school- 
boy than for a general, and, when Lille surrendered, he 
was found playing at shuttlecock. 'Do what you will,' 
said Gamaches ironically, * the Due de Bretagne (his 
infant son) will always be your master ' ; and, on another 
occasion, the same officer remarked with considerable 
truth : * You will certainly win the Kingdom of Heaven, 



THE DUKE AND DUCHESS OF BUEGUNDY 337 

but as for winning the kingdom of this world — Marl- 
borough and Eugene set about it in a better way than 
you.' 

But Vendome, influential and unscrupulous as he was, 
would have been powerless against the future heir to the 
throne if he had not been backed by an active party at 
Court. The small coterie of Meudon, which hoped before 
long to rule France through Monseigneur, saw in the 
situation a chance of removing a rival, and seized the 
opportunity eagerly. The character of the Due de Bour- 
gogne was a formidable obstacle in the path of its ambi- 
tions ; to discredit him personally and destroy his influ- 
ence was, therefore, the object of the campaign which was 
now set on foot. Paris was flooded with chansons (in 
some of which the hand of Mme. la Duchesse can be 
clearly traced) which held the Due de Bourgogne up to 
ridicule, mocked at his excessive piety, and taunted him 
with cowardice. Alberoni, an Italian and a creature of 
Vendome's, wrote a letter which was distributed broadcast, 
in which he lauded his protector to the skies and laid the 
whole blame for the defeat at Oudenarde on the shoulders 
of the Due de Bourgogne. ' I am a Eoman,' this precious 
effusion concluded, ' that is to say, I belong to a race that 
always speaks the truth ; "in civitate omnium gnara et 
nihil reticente," says our Tacitus. Permit me, after that, 
to tell you respectfully that your countrymen are quite 
capable of forgetting all the marvels which the good prince 
(Vendome) worked in my country, and which will make his 
name immortal . . . "injuriarum et beneficiorum eeque 
immemores; " but the good prince is unmoved, knowing 
that he has nothing with which to reproach himself, and 
that, so long as he was allowed to carry out his own 
plans, he was always successful.' 

The game was a dangerous one, but for a while it was 
successful. Even Chamillart, who was ordinarily no 

z 



338 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

friend to policies that emanated from Meudon, was carried 
away by the current. Paris and France took up the cry 
that Vendome had been thwarted and over-ruled, and 
that only the cowardice and incompetence of the Due 
de Bourgogne had converted a brilliant victory into a 
humiliating defeat ; while the Court, seeing the easy 
triumph of the cabal and always anxious to be on the 
winning side, went over in a body to the Meudon faction, 
extolled Vendome, and belittled the prince. The few who 
remained loyal were shouted down, and Saint-Simon, find- 
ing himself powerless to stem the tide, retired for a while 
into privacy till better days should dawn. 

But the person who suffered most acutely from this 
campaign of misrepresentation and slander was the 
Duchesse de Bourgogne. Her husband's eclipse must 
necessarily put an end to any hopes she might cherish 
of retaining her own exceptional position when Mon- 
seigneur should become king. But she was not actuated 
solely, or even principally, by selfish motives. Thought- 
less, but fundamentally loyal, the injustice of the attack 
revolted her and drew her closer to the victim. Scorn- 
fully rejecting the overtures of Vendome, who feared her 
influence with the king and was anxious to conciliate 
her, she ranged herself on the side of her injured husband, 
the avowed and open enemy of his foes. But she pos- 
sessed little or no political influence. Life had been to 
her, hitherto, a round of pleasures, and, beyond a general 
desire to please, she had made no effort to exercise power. 
Thus, though personally popular, she had no party which 
she could range in battle order against the forces of 
Meudon. One staunch and powerful ally she had in the 
person of Madame de Maintenon. But even Madame de 
Maintenon's influence, though great, was limited, and she 
was unable at the moment to devise a remedy or shake 
the king's confidence in his favourite general. The Due 



THE UUKE AND DUCHESS OF BURGUNDY 339 

de Bourgogne was apprised of what was happening ; he 
was urged to speak plainly and clear himself of the false 
charges that were being levelled at him. But, with mis- 
placed chivalry, he refused to exculpate himself at the 
expense of his traducer, and trusted to time to do him 
Justice. Perhaps, too, he hardly realised the serious- 
ness of the situation, and his silence and apparent 
acquiescence paralysed his friends in the army, who 
suffered under the insolence of Vendome but were afraid 
to speak. 

This waiting game, which the character of her hus- 
band imposed upon her, was very galling to the impetuous 
and high-spirited princess. In public she still carried her 
head high, but at night time she would steal to the bed- 
side of Madame de Maintenon and pour out her sorrows 
to weary but sympathetic ears. Moreover, her continual 
dejection irritated the king, who liked to be surrounded 
by cheerful faces, and neutralised for a time her influence 
in that quarter. Altogether, in the autumn of 1708, the 
prestige of the Due and Duchesse de Bourgogne seemed 
to the ordinary courtier to have been rudely, if not fatally, 
shaken, and all who worshipped the rising sun turned 
their eyes towards Meudon. 

In the middle of December 1708 the Due de Bour- 
gogne returned from the wars. The king received him 
kindly but not effusively, and the Court, so far as etiquette 
permitted, gave him the cold shoulder. He was too simple 
to conceal the joy he felt at being home again with the 
wife he loved, and his cheerful, smiling face shocked even 
his friends, who thought that a sad and careworn expres- 
sion would have better suited the requirements of the 
case. The young prmce was incapable of acting ; but he 
submitted to be schooled by his wife, and lived for a while 
in dignified retirement. 

Almost at the same time Vendome also appeared at 

z 2 



340 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

Versailles ; his reception, both there and at Meudon, was 
flattering, but not quite so cordial as he had expected. 
Already the enthusiasm which his name had once excited 
had begun to cool ; the defeat at Oudenarde might be 
ascribed to the incapacity of the Due de Bourgogne, but 
his subsequent failure to strike a decisive blow on behalf of 
Lille needed a good deal of explanation. Meanwhile other 
officers were coming home, and the truth was beginning 
to be known in fragments. They spoke, in private, of the 
general's incompetence and ignorance, of his incurable sloth, 
which allowed the favourable moment to pass by unused, 
and of the arrogance which made him deaf to warnings ; 
and when the Duke of Berwick, a soldier of established 
reputation, returned and denounced the incapacity of the 
popular favourite, the discontent of the army, long stifled, 
found public expression, and what had been whispered in 
the closet began to be shouted on the housetops. Early 
in the following year Vendome was informed that his 
services would not be required for the ensuing campaign 
and that he would cease to draw his pay as general of 
the army. The blow was a severe one ; the cabal 
began to realise that their zeal had run ahead of their 
discretion, and that the weapon with which they had 
struck at the Due de Bourgogne was likely to wound 
their own hands. 

But it was not till Puysegur undertook to enlighten 
him that Louis completely abandoned his illusions about 
the man whom he had learned to regard as his only general. 
Puysegur, who enjoyed the personal confidence of the 
king, had been serving as lieutenant-general in the army 
of Flanders. In a private audience, whose original object 
had been to refute certain charges which Vendome had 
made against him, he lifted the veil which Vendome had 
skilfully drawn over his own failures, and not only exposed 
the incapacity of that general in Flanders, but succeeded 



THE DUKE AND DUCHESS OF BUEGUNDY 341 

in shaking Louis' faith in the brilliancy of the Italian 
campaigns. 

From that moment Vendome's final downfall was 
assured. Madame de Maintenon, who watched events 
closely though she could not always control them, warned 
the Duchesse de Bourgogne that the time had come to 
strike a decisive blow at her enemy, and the favourable 
moment presented itself at Marly soon after Easter in 
1709. Vendome, though somewhat under a cloud, was 
still a regular guest at Marly and carried his head high. 
' To hear him and see him,' says Saint-Simon, * you would 
have thought that he was the master of the place.' The 
Due de Bourgogne, with his habitual forbearance, showed 
no resentment against his arrogant rival, but the duchess 
chafed at his continued presence. One day, when she 
was sitting down to a game of hrelan in the salon with 
her father-in-law, Monseigneur, the party happened to be 
incomplete, and Monseigneur, looking round and seeing 
Vendome, called to him to join them and make a fifth. 
At this the Duchess of Burgundy said, quietly but dis- 
tinctly, that the presence of M. de Vendome at Marly 
was painful enough to her in any case, and that the 
position would become intolerable if she was obliged to 
play cards with him. She therefore begged that she might 
be excused. Monseigneur, who had acted on the spur 
of the moment and without reflection, recognised his 
mistake, and Vendome, who had come up to the card- 
table, had the humiliation of being sent away again while 
another took his place. He turned on his heels and 
withdrew to his room, where he relieved his feelings by 
a violent outburst of passion. 

Having thus brought matters to a crisis, the Duchesse 
de Bourgogne, supported by Madame de Maintenon, 
appealed to the king, and Louis did not hesitate. That 
same evening Bloin was sent to inform Vendome that 



342 THE GREAT DAYS OF VEESAILLES 

he must no longer expect to be invited to Marly, as his 
presence there was distasteful to the Duchesse de Bour- 
gogne. A few weeks afterwards the doors of Meudon 
also were closed to him, and, deserted by his fair-weather 
friends, he retired to Anet and the companionship of 
grooms and valets.^ The personal triumph of the princess 
was complete, and the Court was quick to realise that 
henceforth she must be treated not merely as a pretty 
doll but as a power to be reckoned with. 

Meanwhile, from his watch-tower at Cambrai, Fenelon 
had seen with anxious eyes the gathering of the clouds 
which for a time overshadowed his cherished pupil. He 
realised, not without a pang of remorse, what had been 
the flaws in his system of education, and he determined 
to repair the mischief. As he had formerly corrected his 
pupil's faults, he would now correct his virtues. 'Far 
from trying to flatter you,' he wrote, 'I am going to put 
together, here, all the worst things that are being said 
about you. . . . Perhaps nobody will dare to tell you 
about them ; but I dare. I fear nothing but failing in my 
duty to God and to you.' There are not many men who, 
at the age of twenty-six, would submit to be schooled 
and scolded. But the Due de Bourgogne was not an 
ordinary man, and the relations between him and Fenelon 
were exceptional. To some of his tutor's reproaches the 
prince pleaded guilty; in the case of others, he urged 
extenuating circumstances ; to all he lent a patient and 
a critical ear. ' Continue,' he wrote, ' your wholesome 
advice, I entreat you, whenever you think it is necessary 
and whenever you can do so safely.' And, acting on the 
prudent counsels given, he set to work to remodel his 
life. Without sacrificing a single vital principle, he became 

' It is only fair to add that in 1710, at Philippe V's urgent request, 
Vendome was sent to Spain ; and there, with a perfectly free hand, he 
fought a couple of brilliant campaigns. 



THE DUKE AND DUCHESS OF BURGUNDY 343 

more human ; and, abandoning his almost monastic seclu- 
sion, took his proper and natural part in the life of the 
world around him. Friends and foes alike were delighted 
at the change. He had, when he chose to exert it, a 
real power of attracting ; and many who had regarded 
him as a gloomy devot were astonished to find in him a 
brilliant talker and a cheerful companion. Without em- 
ploying any of the baser arts he gradually achieved a 
popularity which became almost legendary. The light 
which had been hidden under a bushel was at last set 
in a candlestick and illuminating all the house. 

In 1711 the death of the father still further enhanced 
the position of the son. The coldness of Monseigneur 
and the secret enmity of the cabal at Meudon had per- 
plexed and pained him, and induced a certain feeling of 
constraint and apprehension which he had been unable to 
shake off. As Dauphin he was secure from attack. He 
rejected the title of Monseigneur which Louis offered him, 
as well as the extravagant pension of 50,000 francs a 
month which his father had enjoyed. ' The state is too 
deeply in debt,' he said; *I shall continue to live as Due 
deBourgogne; ' and of the 16,000 francs which he drew in 
that capacity 15,000 were spent in charity. * Subjects,' 
he said one day, when refusing to buy a new writmg-desk 
which had taken his fancy, * subjects will never be assured 
of the necessaries of life till princes learn to dispense 
with luxuries.' 

The new Dauphin and Dauphine rose to their duties 
in a way which delighted their friends, and nobody was 
allowed to suffer by the change. The death of Monseigneur 
had disappointed an ambitious few, whose open hostility 
to the Due de Bourgogne in 1708 seemed to mark them 
out for punishment, or at least humiliation. But the 
Dauphin and Dauphine were both entirely free from 
any feeling of vindictiveness. Affable, courteous, and 



344 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

conciliatory, they discouraged all intrigues and set them- 
selves to pour oil on the troubled waters. The Dauphine 
took a naive pleasure in her exalted position. ' She says,' 
wrote Madame de Maintenon, ' that she feels herself 
growing every day.' Even the Princess Palatine was 
charmed into an expression of admiration. The Dauphin 
felt the responsibilities of power more keenly, but faced 
them with his customary conscientiousness. By the king's 
order he was initiated into all the secrets of state. The 
ministers worked with him, and his advice was asked and 
listened to on important questions. The weary king was 
learning more and more to value the real worth and 
talents of his grandson, and to shift the burden of re- 
sponsibility on to his young shoulders. 'You will see,' 
he said ; ' he knows everything, and he will do better than 
I.' The country, too, had at last recognised the qualities 
of its future king, and Paris and the provinces were as 
enthusiastic in their praises as they had been lavish in 
their blame. 

It needed just a fortnight to destroy so bright a 
promise and to shatter such well-founded hopes. 

There are several indications that the Duchesse de 
Bourgogne had not been enjoying the best of health for 
some years. Her exuberant spirits, indeed, carried her 
through fatigues that were too much for the ordinary 
mortal, and she could out-dance any man or woman in 
France. But, though physically strong, she does not 
seem to have been constitutionally robust. In 1701 she 
had had a dangerous illness, brought on by bathing in the 
river immediately after she had eaten a meal of fruit. For 
a time she was considered m extremis ; her confessor had 
been called in ; and her first convalescence had been 
followed by a serious relapse. Moreover, she had always 
had very bad teeth, and the frequent abscesses from 
which she suffered were weakening as well as painful. In 



THE DUKE AND DUCHESS OF BURGUNDY 345 

1705 Madame de Maintenon had written : * The Duchesse 
de Bourgogne is not well ; the doctors prescribe a number 
of remedies which require much more patience than she 
is able to give. However, M. Fagon does not think much 
of the tumour of which she is so proud, for she likes to 
give big names to her maladies.' Again, in 1708, the 
same lady notes that the princess is out of health, but 
finds an explanation in the festivities of the carnival. 

The winter of 1711-12 seems to have been an excep- 
tionally unhealthy season, and a dangerous type of measles 
was claiming victims among old and young alike. On 
December 28 Madame de Maintenon wrote from Ver- 
sailles : * Our dear princess has been tortured for several 
days by abscesses in her teeth ; but she is rather better 
to-day.' Again, on January 11, she says : * A few days ago 
she had a feverish attack ; the courtiers were dismayed, 
and talked of the irreparable loss which her death would 
cause.' On Monday, January 18, the king went to Marly ; 
the Dauphine arrived with a swollen face, and went to 
bed immediately ; but she got up again at 7 p.m. because 
the king wished her to be present in the salon. She 
played cards with her face wrapped up, and in deshabille, 
saw the king in Madame de Maintenon's room, and had 
supper in bed. The following day she spent in bed, but 
rose at nine in the evening to visit the king and show 
herself at the card-table. On Wednesday the swelling 
had subsided, and for the rest of the visit, which lasted 
till the end of the month, the Dauphine was living her 
normal life. On the night of February 5, however, at 
Versailles, she had a fresh attack of fever. She got up 
the next morning at her usual hour, and presided over the 
card-table in the evening ; but the fever returned in the 
night, and on Sunday, February 7, she kept her bed. 
At 6 P.M. she was in such pain that she was obliged to 
ask the king, who was anxious to see her, to postpone his 



346 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

visit. Writing on that day to Mme. des Ursins, Madame 
de Maintenon said : ' The Dauphine has a fixed pain 
between the ear and the top of the jaw (just below the 
temple) : the affected part is so small that you could cover 
it with a finger-nail ; she has convulsions and cries like a 
woman in travail, and at about the same intervals. She 
was bled twice yesterday, and has had three doses of 
opium; a moment ago she seemed more easy. I am 
going to see her, and will close this letter as late as pos- 
sible in order to give you the last news. ... 7 p.m. — The 
Dauphine, after smoking and chewing tobacco, and taking 
a fourth dose of opium, is rather better, I have just 
heard that she has slept for an hour and hopes to have a 
good night.' 

Nevertheless, in spite of opium and tobacco, the Dau- 
phine passed the night in great agony, and it was not till 
4 P.M. on the following day that the pain finally left her. 
The patient herself said that she had suffered less at child- 
birth. The disappearance of the pain, however, was followed 
by an increase of fever, and she lay in a semi-comatose con- 
dition which puzzled the doctors. On Tuesday, February 9, 
a rash on the skin gave grounds for hope that the illness 
would prove to be measles ; but the rash disappeared and 
the fever increased. On Thursday, February 11, it was 
thought desirable that she should confess. True to the 
maxim of her father, the Duke of Savoy, who used to say, 
' Live with the Jesuits, but don't die with them,' she dis- 
missed her Jesuit confessor, Pere de la Kue ; and, in the 
absence of Pere Bailly, Pere Noel, a Franciscan, was 
sent for. From him she received absolution and extreme 
unction, and the king came to the foot of her bed to take 
the sacrament. An hour afterwards she asked that the 
prayers for the dying might be read, but was told that her 
condition was not yet desperate and that she must try to 
get some sleep. The same evening seven doctors held a 



THE DUKE AND DUCHESS OF BURGUNDY 347 

consultation, and prescribed the usual remedies — namely, 
that she should be bled again on the foot, and take an 
emetic on the following morning. Neither remedy, of 
course, had any effect except to exhaust the waning 
strength of the patient ; and at 8 p.m. on Friday, 
February 12, after several hours of unconsciousness, the 
Dauphine passed quietly away. 

The king and Madame de Maintenon, who had been 
constantly in and out of the sick chamber, were waiting 
for the end in the Salon de la Paix, dazed by the sudden- 
ness and immensity of their loss. When all was over, 
they rose mechanically and drove off to Marly. Two 
days later Mme. de Caylus, taking up the pen for Madame 
de Maintenon, wrote to Mme. des Ursins : * Tout est mort 
ici, Madame, la vie en est otee. The princess gave life 
to everything and charmed us all. "We are still stunned 
by our loss, and every day we feel it more intensely. It 
is impossible to see the king, or even to think of him, 
without a feeling of despair and without constant anxiety 
for his health. As for my aunt,^ it is impossible for me 
to speak of her, except to obey her instructions. She 
cannot write to you, and you will easily understand why.' 

' With her,' says Saint-Simon, ' departed joy, pleasure, 
and every kind of grace ; and darkness settled over all 
the Court. She had been its life, she filled it, possessed 
it, penetrated its inmost being ; and, if it survived her, it 
was only to drag on a languishing existence.' 

One last and somewhat tragic utterance of Madame 
de Maintenon must be quoted here. * I shall never cease,' 
she wrote to the Due de Noailles, six weeks after the sad 
event, ' I shall never cease to weep for the Dauphine ; but 
every day I hear of things which make me think that she 
would have caused me grievous disappointments {qu'elle 
m'aurait donne de grands deplaisirs). God has taken her 

' Keally, her cousin. 



348 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

in His mercy.' To what exactly Madame de Maintenon 
is alluding remains an unsolved mystery. Some, arguing 
from a passage in Duclos, have supposed that the Dauphine 
betrayed state secrets to her father, the Duke of Savoy ; 
but such of her letters as are extant in the archives of 
Turin lend no colour to this accusation. Is it not more 
probable that Madame de Maintenon had for the first 
time discovered the dangerous character of the flirtations 
with Nangis and Maulevrier? The lack of affection of 
the Duchesse de Bourgogne for her husband had always 
been a source of keen anxiety to the elder lady, and their 
perfect union her dearest wish. Moreover, it was the 
habit of Madame de Maintenon always to find in the 
workings of Providence an obviously beneficent purpose. 

When the Dauphin received the news of his wife's 
death he was himself lying prostrate on a bed of sickness. 
For four days he had hardly left the Dauphine's side, 
except when his friends forced him for a few minutes into 
the gardens to breathe the air ; but on the fifth day he 
was seized with an attack of fever, which was at first sup- 
posed to be of the ordinary tertian kind. The doctors 
forbade him to leave his room, and kept him purposely 
ignorant of the extreme gravity of his wife's condition. 
The blow, therefore, fell with paralysing force, and, for 
the few days that he survived it, he lived like one in a 
dream. Heart-broken, for he had loved the Dauphine 
with an almost passionate love, he looked drearily into the 
future, and it was only by a supreme effort of will that he 
succeeded in stifling the impulse to revolt, and bowed sub- 
missively to the divine will. 

On Saturday, February 13, his friends persuaded him 
to leave Versailles in order that he might be spared the 
sounds from the death-chamber, immediately above his 
head, where the body of his wife was to be embalmed and 
coffined. He was lifted into a carriage, and, at eight in 



THE DUKE AND DUCHESS OF BURGUNDY 349 

the morning, he drove off to Marly. Like a wounded 
thing, he would gladly have crept away into solitude and 
hiding ; but at Marly there was no privacy, and Court 
etiquette required that he should receive visits of condo- 
lence from all who were entitled to pay them. On the 
evening of the fatal 12th the king had left Versailles 
without seeing the bereaved husband, feeling himself 
unequal to the ordeal ; but at Marly the dreaded inter- 
view could no longer be postponed. Saint-Simon, who 
was an eye-witness of the scene, has left us one of his 
vivid pictures. The Dauphin, after hearing Mass and 
receiving the visits of Madame de Maintenon and the 
princes and princesses, had been left alone in his room. 
* Meanwhile the hour of the king's reveil was approach- 
ing ; his three gentlemen-in -waiting entered the Dauphin's 
room, and I ventured to go in with them. He showed 
me that he noticed my presence by a look of gentle 
affection which moved me deeply. But I was terrified by 
his appearance, the strained, fixed, and almost fierce expres- 
sion of his eyes, the alteration in his features, and the 
numerous marks, livid rather than red, which I and others 
noticed on his face. He was standing, and a few moments 
afterwards they came to tell him that the king was awake. 
The tears which he had been holding back began to flow. 
He turned, but said nothing, and remained motionless. 
The three gentlemen-in-waiting suggested to him several 
times that he should go and speak to the king, but he 
neither stirred nor answered. At last I went up to him 
and proposed the same thing; and, as he did not reply, I 
ventured to take him by the arm and represent to him 
that, sooner or later, he would have to see the king, that 
the king was expecting him, and that it would be more 
gracious not to defer the visit ; and, so speaking, I pushed 
him gently towards the door. He gave me a look that 
pierced my heart, and went out. I followed him for a 



350 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

few yards, and then withdrew for a minute to recover 
myself. I never saw him again. God grant that, here- 
after, I may see him for ever in that world to which His 
mercy has removed him.' ^ 

As the poor Dauphin well knew would happen, every- 
body at Marly had assembled in the king's room to witness 
the interview ; and they were not disappointed of a scene. 
The king embraced his grandson tenderly and repeatedly, 
but could utter nothing but sobs and a few broken words ; 
till, alarmed by the Dauphin's appearance, he found voice 
to summon Fagon. By the latter's advice the Dauphin 
went back to bed. He never rose again. For a few days 
his strength ebbed and flowed, but he hardly attempted to 
struggle. The springs of life were broken, and he was 
eager to be gone. He received the sacrament shortly 
after midnight on Wednesday, and died at half-past eight 
on Thursday morning, February 18, 1712. He was within 
a few months of his thirtieth birthday. 

Even then death had not struck its last blow at the 
ill-fated family. The Dauphin had left two sons, the Due 
de Bretagne, a strong and lively child aged five years and a 
half, and the Due d'Anjou, who was still a baby. At the 
beginning of March both the young princes were struck 
down with measles, and on the 8th, shortly after mid- 
night, the elder succumbed to disease and the doctors. 
Of the union which had promised so much for France 
there was nothing left but a pretty ailing child, whom 
posterity was afterwards to know and execrate as 
Louis XV. 

Saint- Simon, waiting of the death of the Due de Bour- 
gogne, says : ' France succumbed to this last punishment. 
God had shown us a prince of whom we and the world 

' There are few things in Hterature more touching than this sudden 
outburst of emotion on the part of a man who was habitually so coldly 
critical and even cynical. 



THE DUKE AND DUCHESS OF BURGUNDY 351 

were not worthy. He was already ripe for eternal blessed- 
ness ! ' And Fenelon expressed the same thought in a 
letter to Mme. Lambert. * God thinks differently from 
men. He destroys what He seemed to have formed ex- 
pressly for His glory. He is punishing us, and we deserve 
the punishment.' How far the Due de Bourgogne would 
have fulfilled the expectations formed of him can only be a 
matter of conjecture ; but speculation about the ' might 
have beens,' though generally futile, is always fascinating ; 
and in this case we have certain well-determined data to 
guide us. We know, for example, in what spirit the 
prince viewed the task that lay before him. It was his 
habit to clear his own thoughts and fortify his good reso- 
lutions by setting them down on paper, and some of 
these documents, originally intended only for his private 
eye, have been preserved. 

' Vulgar and uneducated people,' he wrote, ' sometimes 
say, " If only I were king ! " Others, better informed, but 
with vain and superficial minds, think very much the 
same thing. The wise man is thankful that he was not 
born to govern others, and prays God to grant wisdom to 
those to whom Providence has assigned this painful 
duty. ... Of all the men who compose a nation the one 
who receives least pity, and yet deserves it most, is the sove- 
reign. He suffers from all the penalties of greatness 
without being able to enjoy any of its pleasures. He is, 
in the midst of his subjects, the man who has the least 
liberty, the least freedom from anxiety, and the fewest of 
those moments when one can enjoy a cheerful and a pure 
repose. There can be no rest for a king. If he passes 
from one house to another, his duties follow him. If he 
spends an idle day he is overwhelmed with work on the 
morrow, or else the machine stops. . . . His whole life is 
a round of tedious functions, harassing cares, laborious 
tasks, and gnawing anxieties. . . . He has palaces, but he 



352 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

does not know them ; wealth, but he cannot enjoy it. . . . 
He is in reality poorer than the poorest of his subjects 
because all the needs of the State are his needs, and they 
always exceed his resources. The father of a family is 
never rich when his income does not suffice for the sus- 
tenance of his children. A king is poor with all the 
poverty of his subjects. And on the moral side to what 
dangers is he not exposed? He is responsible, at one 
and the same time, for the evil which is done in his 
kingdom and for the good which is not done. He can 
do what he pleases ; will he never do more than he ought, 
or otherwise than as he ought ? If he appears to desire 
what God's law condemns, how many interested flatterers 
will try to justify his inclinations, to second his ambitions, 
and to tranquillise his conscience ! He is surrounded 
by sunken rocks : for no one is it easier to leave the right 
channel ; for no one is it harder to get back to it again.' 

These are not the words of an eager reformer, who 
sees a great work before him and longs to grapple with 
it; and, in a war with abuses, enthusiasm is half the 
victory. But, on the other hand, the Due de Bourgogne 
never dreamed of shirking the task ; he sought, and perhaps 
would have found, in religion a motive power as strong 
as, and far more constant than, enthusiasm. * One of 
the commonest and most dangerous temptations,' he 
wrote, 'for those who are charged with the welfare of 
multitudes is to let themselves be overwhelmed by the 
difficulties of the task. . . . The soul needs a supernatural 
motive to support it in a life of sacrifices that are repug- 
nant to the natural man. But when a king, always 
mindful of the eye of God which watches him, re- 
members that he is the minister of His mercy towards 
man . . . when he remembers, like Saint Louis, that 
the thorns of his earthly crown will change to roses 
in the kingdom of rest, his soul rises above Nature 



THE DUKE AND DUCHESS OF BURGUNDY 353 

and itself ; nothing can discourage him, and he is 
not weary in well doing. He does well to the good because 
they are good, and to the evil to encourage them to become 
good, and because he must imitate the Divine Father "Who 
makes His sun to rise on the just and on the unjust." ' 

And these thoughts were not merely the aspirations of 
the study ; they were the active principles of his daily life. 
Moreau, his valet, when he lay dying, sent to beg for 
his master's prayers because ' he knew no man whose 
prayers would be more acceptable to God.' Had the Due 
de Bourgogne become king, France would undoubtedly 
have been governed by a good man and through good 
men. It is true that good men are not always wise men, 
and nations have suffered quite as much under virtuous as 
under profligate princes. But the Due de Bourgogne had 
brains as well as piety ; and, above all, he had a passion 
for facts. At his instigation, and under his direction, 
Louis had sanctioned a kind of general inquiry into the 
health of France and unwittingly provided the most 
damaging proof of his own failure as a ruler. It was 
the first time that statistics had been collected and 
grouped together in an orderly way, and they filled forty- 
two folio volumes. The Due de Bourgogne set him- 
self to master this solid mass of facts with a success that 
argues a prodigious patience and a still more prodigious 
memory. And, as a result, he would have brought to 
the problems of government a knowledge such as few 
rulers have possessed. He knew what were the resources 
of his country, its agriculture, trade, manufactures, navi- 
gable rivers, roads, and ports. He knew, too, that in 
some places the population had diminished by a fourth, 
a third, or even a half ; that in certain rural districts the 
peasants, exhausted by hunger, no longer dared to marry ; 
that houses were crumbling to ruin and industries decay- 
ing. He knew that in the province of le Maine the 

A A 



354 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

number of canvas-makers had dwindled from 20,000 to 
less than 6,000, and that in the Touraine there were a 
bare 4,000 silk-weavers where there had once been 60,000. 
If he had reigned there can be no doubt that the Due de 
Bourgogne would have ended the epoch of war and extra- 
vagance which was bleeding France white, and have given 
the marvellous recuperative powers of the nation a chance 
of repairing the damage. And a contented peasantry in 
1789 would probably have saved the monarchy. 

"What political and administrative changes he would 
have effected it is harder to determine, but changes there 
would certainly have been. The Due de Bourgogne was 
no lover of autocracy, and it may safely be said that 
Louis XIV's system would have been either swept away 
or profoundly modified. What would have taken its 
place ? Probably the nobles would have recovered some 
of their political importance. Saint-Simon's enthusiasm 
for the prince's schemes, which he had been privileged to 
discuss, precludes all reasonable doubt on that head. 
But the ' third estate ' would also have been admitted to 
a direct share in the government of the country. In 1711 
Fenelon, in conjunction with the Due de Chevreuse, and 
with the knowledge and assent of the prince, had drawn 
up a rough scheme of reforms which he called Plans de 
Gouvernement. Decentralisation was the key-note of the 
plan. Farmers of taxes and intendants were to be 
abolished, and three different kinds of assemblies were to 
be substituted. First, in each diocese, there was to be a 
small body called ' ^tahlissement d'assiette,' composed of 
the bishop, the principal seigneurs, and representatives of 
the 'third estate.' To them would be entrusted the duty 
of settling the incidence of taxation. Secondly, there 
were to be 'Provincial Estates,' made up of the repre- 
sentatives of each diocese who were to revise and correct 
the distribution of imposts, and regulate the objects on 



THE DUKE AND DUCHESS OF BURGUNDY 355 

which the revenue was to be employed. Lastly came 
the States General, composed of three deputies from each 
diocese, to wit the bishop, a seigneu?- elected by his peers, 
and a representative of the third estate, likewise chosen by 
his own order. They were to meet every three years and 
to sit for as long as they deemed it necessary ; they were 
to control the finances and be free to discuss such ques- 
tions as police, justice, agriculture, war, the conclusion of 
peace, and foreign policy. 

The scheme was only a scheme, and might well have 
been much modified in practice. But there are two points 
in it which are worth noticing. First, that, though the third 
estate was in a minority, its claims to political influence 
were definitely recognised. The tendencies of the age 
could hardly have failed to extend and consolidate that 
influence. And, secondly, that the power which holds the 
purse-strings inevitably (though probably Fenelon had not 
realised this) in the long run controls the policy. 

On the whole, it is reasonable to suppose that the 
Due de Bourgogne would have laid the foundations of 
political institutions capable of growing into the national 
life and of adapting themselves to its changing needs. The 
country was not ripe for a revolution ; and revolution itself 
is only a confession that existing institutions are in- 
capable of expansion and must be violently replaced by 
others, whose end no man can foresee and which have 
none of the sanction of time and tradition behind them. 
It was the curse of France that though the monarchy, as 
it was conceived by Eichelieu and Louis XIV, gave unity 
to what had been an aggregation of provinces with 
different laws and varying social customs, it destroyed the 
Provincial States, which might have been developed into 
a national and representative assembly. But the memory 
of their vanished privileges was still cherished by the 
bourgeoisie in 1715, and, if the Due de Bourgogne had 

A A 2 



356 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

done DO more than vest some of these ancient local 
rights in a central and representative body, he would have 
rendered his country a signal service. For the Great 
Eevolution of 1789, which, in spite of the intrusion of the 
Paris mob, was mainly a revolution of the middle classes, 
failed chiefly for this reason, that its leaders had had no 
training in politics and were unable to direct their noble 
enthusiasms by the calm light of practical experience or a 
solid knowledge of affairs. 



;57 



CHAPTEK XII 

DUG d'ANJOU and DUO DE BERRY 

Birth and education — The Due d'Anjou— Described by Madame — Becomes 
King of Spain — The Due de Berry — An attractive child — His temper — 
An ignorant man — His marriage — Led by his wife— Quarrels with the 
Duchesse de Bourgogne — Reconciliation — The shirt — His breakdown 
in public — Loses his son — Last illness and death— His character and 
appearance. 

Of the two younger sons of the Grand Dauphin, one was 
destined to be the first of the Spanish Bourbons, the 
other died in early manhood at a moment when he seemed 
likely to be the eventual successor of Louis XIV on the 
throne of France. They were born, respectively, in 
December 1683 and August 1686, and were brought up 
with the Due de Bourgogne in the southern wing of . the 
palace. Beauvillier was their gouverneur, and Fenelon 
supervised their studies ; but, as was natural, they did not 
receive such an elaborate education as their elder brother, 
and had separate tutors of their own. 

Philippe Due d'Anjou was, by nature, the most docile 
and the least attractive of the three princes. A fair- 
haired, pasty-faced, unwholesome-looking boy, he possessed 
neither the vivacity nor the headstrong temperament of 
his brothers, and was admirably fitted to play the part of 
peacemaker in the quarrels which were of frequent occur- 
rence between the other two children. Madame, writing 
of him in 1700, when he was seventeen years old, described 
him as follows : ' He is neither so lively nor so clever as 



358 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

his younger brother, but he has other excellent qualities. 
He has a good heart and he is generous — a rare thing in 
his family. Moreover, he is truthful, and nothing would 
induce him to tell a lie : he will be a man of his word 
when he grows up. He is compassionate and brave . . , 
In appearance he is thoroughly Austrian, and his mouth 
is always open. I am constantly telling him of it ; when 
I do so he shuts it, for he is very docile, but he soon forgets 
and opens it again. I like him better than the Due de 
Bourgogne, for he is good-hearted and not contemptuous.' 

"With this dull and pacific temperament the Due 
d'Anjou seemed destined to play a very unimportant role 
in history, 'but in the November of 1700 a new and 
dazzling career was suddenly thrust upon him. Louis 
XIV, in spite of diplomatic denials, had always cherished 
a secret ambition to ' abolish the Pyrenees ' and unite 
France and Spain, if not under the same crown at least 
under the same dynasty ; and, after a few days of real or 
pretended hesitation, he definitely accepted the will of 
Charles II, by which the second of his own grandsons was 
summoned to the vacant throne. 

The new king, Philippe V, accepted the situation in the 
resigned spirit in which the Oriental submits to fate ; and, 
after much ceremonious leave-taking, he started on his 
journey south, accompanied by his two brothers and the 
Due de Beauvillier. The final separation took place at 
St. Jean de Luz, and Philippe passed on alone into the 
country of his adoption. His subsequent career furnishes 
an exciting chapter in Spanish history, but does not enter 
into the scheme of these studies. He survived his brothers 
by many years, and died in 1746. 

The Due de Berry was a much more engaging child 
than either of his brothers. Less haughty than the Due 
de Bourgogne and less solemn than the Due d'Anjou, 
his high spirits and frank boyish face made him a 



DUO D'ANJOU AND DUG DE BERRY 359 

universal favourite. ' The Due de Berry,' said Madame, 
' is always merry ' ; and the Dauphine, noticing her 
partiality for the little prince, laughingly dubbed him 
' Madame's Berry.' His cheerful prattle amused and 
charmed the elder lady ; in 1697, describing the family 
dinner which followed the marriage of the Due de 
Bourgogne, she wrote : * I enjoyed myself at table, for 
I was sitting next to my dear Due de Berry, and he made 
me laugh. " I can see my brother ogling his little wife," 
said he ; " but, if I cared to, I could ogle too, for I learned 
how to do it long ago : you have to look steadily, side- 
ways " ; and, so saying, he imitated his brother so drolly 
that I had to laugh.' In the following year the same lady 
gave a characteristic picture of the three brothers. ' The 
day before yesterday the king allowed the three princes 
and the Duchesse de Bourgogne to go to the play for the 
first time . . . the T^iecewa>s the' Bourgeois Gentilhomme.' 
The Due de Bourgogne quite lost his serious look and 
laughed till the tears came into his eyes ; the Due d'Anjou 
was so delighted that he sat there in ecstasies with his 
mouth gaping and his eyes fixed on the stage ; the Due de 
Berry laughed so much that he nearly fell off his chair.' 

But, in spite of his naturally cheerful and good-natured 
disposition, the boy was liable to fits of uncontrollable 
passion. 'My dear Due de Berry,' wrote Madame in 
1699, ' has been put, so to speak, under arrest. He is to 
be shut up for a week, nobody is to see him, and the door 
of his apartment is locked. He really deserves the punish- 
ment, for he is excessively passionate. Last Monday he 
was out shooting rabbits with his brothers. As he is very 
impulsive in all that he does, his governors told him to 
shoot as much as he Hked, but not in the direction of his 
brothers. In spite of the warning he fired in the forbidden 
direction and came within a foot of kiUing his eldest brother, 
the Due de Bourgogne. His sous-gouverneur,yL. de Eazilly,^ 
' Madame wrote the name ' Baselie.' 



360 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

snatched the gun from his hands and wouldn't let him fire 
again. Whereupon he flew into such a passion that he 
tried to dash out his own brains ; and would have done so, 
if they hadn't taken away from him a huge stone which he 
had seized in his hands. He called his sous-goitverneur 
" rascal, traitor, scoundrel." M. de Eazilly said, " I shall 
complain to the king and he will do me justice." " Yes," 
replied the Due de Berry, " he will have your head cut off, 
and you deserve it." In consequence of all this, the king 
has had him put under arrest ; but he doesn't mind a bit. 
Yesterday was his third day of captivity, and he does 
nothing but dance and sing. Yesterday morning, when 
his sous-gouverneur came into the room, he said in the 
most cheerful voice : " Well, sir ; when is the ball coming 
off? I shall be allowed to dance, I suppose?" M. de 
Eazilly replied : " How can you think of dancing ? don't 
you know that you are in prison ? " " I, in prison ! " said 
the Due de Berry ; " understand, sir, that people of my 
rank are not treated like that : prison would be well 
enough for you ! " 

Temper of this kind is common enough in children 
and is more amusing than alarming. The Due de_ Berry, 
even in his bad moods, was not vindictive or cruel, and, 
in spite of his faults, was a thoroughly jolly, happy-go- 
lucky boy. But the man who emerged from this enter- 
taining chrysalis was decidedly disappointing. For the 
liveliness which had charmed in the boy was rather 
the result of an impulsive and somewhat undisciplined 
character than the first-fruits of a quick intelligence. As 
a man, the Due de Berry was good-hearted and funda- 
mentally loyal, but stupid and entirely futile. He had 
never shown any enthusiasm for his studies. ' I have no 
luck,' he said sadly in 1700 ; ' I have no chance of 
becoming a king like my brothers, and, now that the Due 
d'Anjou is going, I shall have all the gouverneurs and 



DpC D'ANJOU AND DUO DE BERRY 361 

sous-gouverneurs on my hands ; and I have more than 
I can do with already. What will become of me when 
I have the others ? ' The fear (quite groundless in the 
present instance) of making the younger prince a more 
accomplished gentleman than his elder brother perhaps 
prevented the authorities from putting much pressure on 
the unwilling horse ; but it is a noticeable indication of 
the prince's slow progress that he was not released from 
tutelage till January 1706, when he was already in his 
twentieth year. 

Like his father, the Grand Dauphin, he made use of 
his freedom to bid a long farewell to books and study, and 
threw himself into the one occupation that interested him 
deeply — namely, the chase. It was not without a keen 
regret that Madame saw her favourite developing into a 
vacant young man, and disappointment gave a touch of 
bitterness to her pen. ' The Due de Berry,' she wrote in 
1709, ' isn't divot at all ; he cares for nothing in the world, 
neither God nor man . . . Provided that he enjoys him- 
self, he doesn't mind how . . . Here are his ordinary 
amusements : he shoots, plays cards, chatters with young 
ladies, and guzzles. Such are his pleasures. I had almost 
forgotten to add that he slides on the ice : for that comes 
in too ! ' And again in 1710 : ' It's not surprising that 
the Due de Berry behaves like a child, for he never talks 
to anybody who has sense. Day and night he is in the 
Duchesse de Bourgogne's rooms, where he plays the valet 
de chambre to her ladies. One makes him fetch a table, 
another her work, a third gives him some other com- 
mission. He stands all the time, or sits on a little stool, 
while all the young ladies are reclining on sofas or in 
easy chairs.' 

Madame, at this time, had no affection for the Duchess 
of Burgundy, and was not likely to view with composure 
the transfer of her favourite's allegiance ; and it is only 



362 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

fair to remember that, if the Due de Berry's Hfe was 
rather purposeless, it was at least free from the graver 
faults. He never succumbed to the temptations which 
had proved too strong for his grandfather, and in a Court 
where the standard of virtue was not excessively high he 
preserved a clean record. Moreover, his affections were 
sincere and loyal ; for his brother he always retained a 
tender regard, and, till intrigue and malice had done their 
worst, he lived on terms of intimate friendship with the 
Duchesse de Bourgogne. A good and clever wife would 
have made a man of him, for his intentions were sound and 
he was easily led. Unfortunately, the bride who was chosen 
for him (for he had little voice in the matter himself) 
proved his evil genius. Madame la Duchesse^ had hoped 
to secure him for her daughter, and her schemes were 
nearly crowned with success. But Madame la Duchesse 
was the avowed enemy of the Duchess of Burgundy and 
the brain of the small coterie at Meudon which desired 
above all things to estrange Monseigneur from his eldest 
son. The Duchess of Burgundy realised betimes that 
the proposed alliance would almost inevitably destroy the 
harmony that subsisted between the two brothers, and she 
set to work to parry the threatened blow. A common 
dread of Madame la Duchesse had formed a bond of union 
between herself and the Duchess of Orleans, the other 
surviving daughter of Madame de Montespan. Madame 
de Maintenon had encouraged the intimacy, and the 
troublous months of 1708, when the princess had been 
sorely in need of sympathy, had put a seal on the 
friendship between the two women. Mademoiselle, the 
eldest daughter of the Duchess of Orleans, was of an age 
to marry, and it was on her that the Duchess of Burgundy 
fixed her choice. The battle was short and sharp ; but 

' The eldest surviving daughter of Madame de Montespan and 
Louis XIV. 



DUG D'ANJOU AND DUG DE BERRY 363 

the princess's influence was great with the king, and 
the king's wishes were law to Monseigneur. Madame la 
Duchesse had to accept defeat, and the marriage was 
celebrated in the new chapel at Versailles in 1710. 

The Duchess of Burgundy congratulated herself on 
the success of her efforts, but the sequel was a cruel dis- 
illusionment. The young Mme. de Berry possessed most 
of the least attractive vices : she mistook a pert and 
overweening pride for dignity, and gratitude was to her a 
meaningless phrase. She at once took advantage of her 
new position to form an offensive and defensive alliance 
with Madame la Duchesse, and went over bag and baggage 
to the enemy. The Due de Berry was too infatuated with 
his wife to offer any serious resistance : her superior 
intelligence awed, and her blandishments seduced him ; 
and he allowed himself to be towed, half reluctantly, in 
her wake. For his brother he still retained the old affec- 
tion, but his relations with the Duchess of Burgundy 
became strained. She, for her part, after sustaining a few 
impertinent rebuffs from her toimev protegee, gave up the 
attempt to win the couple back by kindness, and realised, 
too late, that her good intentions had only succeeded in 
planting a dangerous enemy within the citadel at Meudon. 

The unexpected death of the Dauphin in 1711, how- 
ever, removed all danger from that quarter, and made the 
position of the de Berrys a precarious one. The duke had 
been sincerely attached to his father, of whom he was the 
favourite son, a love of the chase and a lack of intellectual 
interests forming a mutual bond between them. His 
wife, who had no personal loss to lament, was nevertheless 
prostrated by the sudden ruin of her ambitions, and had 
good grounds for fearing the just resentment of the new 
Dauphine. But the Bourgognes were singularly free from 
the petty spite and malice which entered so largely into 
the lives of their contemporaries, and the first use they 



364 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

made of their enhanced prestige was to effect a gracious 
and tactful reconciliation with the offenders. 

The Due de Berry would have liked nothing better 
than to accept the proffered hand and let bygones be 
bygones. But his wife, as soon as she realised that she 
had nothing to fear, gave rein again to her spiteful pro- 
clivities. Among the many ancient ceremonies which 
had been incorporated into the strange mosaic of Court 
etiquette was the custom by which a new Dauphin 
received his shirt, at least once, from the hands of the 
male relative who stood next below him in the feudal 
hierarchy. The service was an act of homage and was, 
naturally, performed either at the lever or the coucher. 
On the death of Monseigneur it became the duty of the 
Due de Berry to render this service to his brother, while 
the Duchesse de Berry was expected to perform the same 
office for the new Dauphine. In view of the recent 
reconciliation nobody supposed that there would be any 
difficulties, and the Due de Berry was ready, and almost 
eager, to comply with the time-honoured usage, which, 
while Louis XIV remained the master, could not be 
dispensed with. But the Duchesse de Berry refused to 
perform what she was pleased to regard as a servile act, 
and allowed her refusal to be so widely known that the 
incident became the talk of the whole Court. The Duke 
and Duchess of Burgundy wisely pretended to know 
nothing of what was happening, but they were nervously 
anxious to get the ordeal over ; for, if any rumours of Mme. 
de Berry's contumacy had reached the ears of the king, 
there would have been a stern reprimand and probably a 
renewed estrangement between the two families. The 
Due d'Orleans, fortunately, appreciated the danger and 
used his influence with his disagreeable daughter to induce 
her to see reason. The Due do Berry attended the 
Dauphin's coucher two days after his father's funeral, 



DUG D'ANJOU AND DUG DE BEERY 365 

handed him the shirt, and received a fraternal embrace ; 
but several days elapsed before his wife could bring 
herself to acknowledge defeat. At last, however, she 
had to yield. The Dauphine received her services with 
charming grace and friendliness, and the incident was 
closed. 

Whether the reconciliation would have stood the test 
of time and the secret ill-will of the Duchesse de Berry is 
more than doubtful, but the early months of 1712 closed 
the chapter for good and all. The Due de Berry mourned 
his brother and sister-in-law long and sincerely, and found 
no compensation in his own enhanced importance. Only 
one delicate child now stood between him and the throne, 
but he was fitted neither by nature nor by training to take 
his brother's place. Of public affairs he was profoundly 
ignorant, and in the presence of the king he was as 
nervous and tongue-tied as poor Marie-Therese had been. 
Nor were his few public appearances of a brilliant de- 
scription. In 1713 it fell to his lot to represent the king 
at a meeting of the Paris Parliament which had been 
summoned to register an important decree. The sitting 
was to open with a complimentary speech from the 
President, de Mesmes, to which the prince was expected 
to reply. 

' He was much worried about this reply,' says Saint- 
Simon. ' Mme de Saint-Simon, to whom he confided his 
difficulties, managed to procure a copy of the President's 
forthcoming address, and gave it to the Due de Berry in 
order that he might be able to frame his reply correctly. 
But this task was too much for him : he confessed his 
incapacity to Mme. de Saint-Simon,^ who proposed that I 
should be given the commission, and he was charmed with 
this solution of the difficulty. Accordingly I wrote out a 
reply which covered a page and a half of ordinary letter 
' Mme. de Saint-Simon was dame cVliomieur to the Duchesse de Berry. 



366 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

paper. The Due de Berry thought it good, but too long 
to learn by heart. I shortened it, but he wanted it 
shorter still ; till, finally, I cut it down to three quarters 
of a page. Then he set to work to learn it by heart, and, 
on the eve of the Seance, recited it in private to Mme. de 
Saint-Simon, who gave him every encouragement.' On 
the appointed day the Due de Berry duly presented 
himself before a distinguished audience, which included 
the Due d' Orleans, two Princes of the Blood, five clerical 
and eighteen lay peers. ' When he had taken his place,' 
continues Saint-Simon, ' there was some difficulty in 
securing silence. But, as soon as it was possible to be 
heard, the President delivered his complimentary address. 
It was now the Prince's turn to reply. He rose, raised his 
hat slightly, looked^at the President and said, '* Monsieur " : 
after a moment's pause he repeated, " Monsieur " ; looked 
at the company and said once more, " Monsieur " , . . 
and there he stuck, without being able to produce a single 
word save this "Monsieur." I was opposite the fourth 
President a Mortier, and so had an uninterrupted view of 
the prince's confusion. I was sweating with anxiety but 
could do nothing ... At last the President, seeing that 
there was no remedy, ended this painful scene by raising 
his hat and bowing low to the Due de Berry, as if the 
reply had been delivered. After which he gave the king's 
officers permission to speak. You may imagine the dismay 
of all the courtiers who were present and the astonishment 
of the lawyers.' 

But the poor prince's humiliations were not over yet. 
When he returned to Versailles, Mme. de Montaubon, who 
had not yet heard of the catastrophe, met him with the 
customary and meaningless flattery of the Court, and 
congratulated him in public on ' the dignified eloquence 
with which he had addressed the Parliament.' As soon 
as he could escape from her importunities, the Due de 



DUO D'ANJOU AND DUG DE BERRY 367 

Berry sought out Mme. de Saint- Simon, and, taking her 
alone into his private cabinet, threw himself on to a sofa, 
burst into tears, and poured his griefs into her sym- 
pathetic ears. He was dishonoured, he said, and people 
would think him a fool and an idiot. Then, suddenly 
falling on the king and Beauvillier, he exclaimed, ' Their 
one idea has been to make me stupid, and to stifle all my 
powers. I was the younger son ; I was a match for my 
brother : they were afraid of the consequences, and have 
annihilated me. They only taught me how to play cards 
and hunt, and they have succeeded in making me a fool, 
incapable of anything, and an object of universal contempt 
and scorn.' The reproach was hardly deserved. If the 
Due de Berry was ignorant, the fault was mainly his own ; 
but it is characteristic of weak natures that they desire 
to shift the blame for their own failings on to other 
shoulders. 

In the April of 1713 the Due de Berry lost his infant 
son, the Due d'Alen9on, who had been born in the previous 
month, and * was inconsolable.'^ His own health at this 
time was far from good, for Madame wrote : * I am very 
anxious about the Due de Berry. Every day he has what 
is called a slow fever and looks horribly ill : his brother 
didn't look worse when he died.' Still, nobody antici- 
pated the sudden end, which came in 1714 and was the 
last of the cruel blows which fate dealt, in such rapid 
succession, at the royal family. 

It was spring-time and the king was at Marly, 
whither the Due de Berry had followed him, leaving his 
wife, who was expecting shortly to be confined, at 
Versailles. According to his wont he had been much in 
the hunting-field. On Thursday, April 26, while saving 
his horse from the effects of a sudden slip, he had fallen 
heavily against the saddle. This accident may have been 
' Madame' letters. 



368 THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 

the immediate cause of his death. At all events, accord- 
ing to his own subsequent account, it was followed by 
symptoms which pointed to the rupture of some internal 
blood-vessel ; but he said nothing at the time, and went 
about his ordinary pursuits. On Monday, April 30, he 
rose at the usual time, intending to go out wolf -hunting ; 
but, after attending the king's lever at 9 a.m., he was 
seized with a shivering fit which obliged him to return to 
bed. Any chance he might have had of ultimate recovery 
was destroyed by the prompt administration of a violent 
emetic. Prostrated by continual nausea and fever he 
survived for four days, and, on Thursday, May 3, he was 
bled for the eighth time. Shortly before the end his 
illness seemed to have taken a sudden turn for the better : 
the feeling of nausea passed away and the fever diminished. 
Madame and the Duchesse d'Orleans were in the sick 
chamber, and the former wrote an account of what took 
place to the Duchess of Hanover. ' The poor prince 
thought he was completely out of danger. " At present, 
Madame," he said, with a laugh, " I think I may tell you 
that I am saved. I have no fever and feel quite well. 
Give a chair to Madame," he cried, "and a seat to Mme. 
d'Orleans, and let us talk." " Certainly not," I replied. 
" Talking might bring back the fever : you must whisper." 
While he was chatting he was seized with a violent 
attack of hiccoughs, and his breath came with such 
difficulty that he could hardly speak. Mme. d'Orleans 
really thought that he was out of danger, and, when we 
left the room, she was astonished to see my eyes full of 
tears. She asked me why I was crying. "Mon Dieu, 
Madame," I replied, "don't you see from his breathing, 
his voice, and that hiccough, that the prince is dying?" 
She wouldn't believe me at the time, but she soon found 
out that I had spoken truly.' In fact, after a short period 
of unconciousness, the Due de Berry died at 4 a.m. on 



DUO D'ANJOU AND DUO DE BERRY 369 

Friday, May 4, in his twenty-eighth year. His heart was 
taken to the Val-de-Grace and his body laid in the 
Bourbon vault at Saint-Denis. 

' He was,' says Saint-Simon, ' a man of medium height 
and somewhat stout, blonde, with a fresh, handsome face 
which seemed the index of a brilliant health. He was 
made for society and pleasure, to which he was devoted. 
The best of men, the kindest and most accessible, free 
from pride and vanity but yet not lacking in dignity, he 
possessed only a moderate intelligence. Nevertheless, he 
had good common sense and was capable of listening, 
understanding, and choosing the right course among 
many specious ones . . . He loved truth and justice, and, 
though not markedly religious, he hated anything that 
savoured of irreligion . . . The best looking and most 
affable of the three brothers he was also the most popular, 
and his death was universally regretted.' 

His wife survived him for five years and lived to be 
the heroine of some of the worst scandals of the Eegency. 



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INDEX 



Albbeoni, Cardinal, 337 

Anet, 342 

Anjou, due d', see Philippe V or 

Louis XV 
Anne of Austria, 114, 116, 129, 130, 

132, 133, 144, 147, 148, 149, 196, 

198, 235, 236, 237, 239, 240 
Anne, Queen of England, 328 
Antin, due d', 21, 48, 142 
' Appartement,' 45, 263, 322 
Argenson, marquis d', 168, 169 
Aubigne, Agrippa d', 194, 195 
Aubigne, Charles d', 195, 199, 200, 

207-210, 215, 222, 223 
Aubigne, Charlotte d', 222 
Aubigne, Constant d', 195 
Aubigne, Frangoise d', see Mme. de 

Maintenon 
Aubigne, Fran(;oise d' (daughter of 

Charles), see Noailles 
Aubigne, Madame d', 195, 196, 197 
Aubigne, Madame d', wife of Charles, 

207-210 

Barbesieux, M. de, 20, 172, 305 

Barry, Mme. du, 60 

Bart, Jean, 97 

Beauvillier, due de, 65, 69, 74, 75, 
121-123, 168, 221, 222, 314, 319, 
324, 325, 357, 358, 367 

Bernard, Samuel, 117, 118 

Berry (Charles de Bourbon), due 
de : birth and education, 357 ; 
dances at Marly, 48 ; marriage, 
281, 282, 362, 363; infatuated 
with his wife, 282 ; at Mon- 
seigneur's death, 312, 314 ; hands 
the shirt, 364, 365 ; breaks down 
in speech, 365-367; death of his 
son, 367 ; illness and death, 63, 
288, 367-369 



Character : described by Saint- 
Simon, 369 ; an attractive 
child, 358, 359; ' Madame's 
Berry,' 281, 359; his father's 
favourite, 306 ; his temper, 359, 
360 ; his pursuits, 361 ; ignorant, 
360, 361, 365-369; estranged 
from duchesse de Bourgogne, 
363 ; reconciliation, 364 

Berry (Marie - Louise - Elisabeth 
d'Orleans), duchesse de : de- 
scribed, 281, 282 ; her marriage, 
281, 282, 362, 363; scene with 
Madame, 283, 284 ; her gluttony, 
281, 282, 289 ; enemy of the 
Bourgognes, 363, 365 ; at Mon- 
seigneur's death, 312, 314 ; other 
references, 55, 85, 86, 289, 367 

Berwick, Duke of, 340 

Bessola, 297 

Bloin (premier valet de chambre), 
25, 224, 341 

Blois, Mile, de, see Orleans, duchesse 
de 

Blois, Mile, de, see Conti, princesse 
de 

Bontemps (premier valet de cham- 
bre), 25, 26, 45, 46, 157, 302 

Bossuet (Bishop of Meaux), 78, 141, 
150, 164, 204, 221, 291, 294, 319 

Boudin, 307, 309 

Boufflers, marechal de, 177, 182 

Bougeoir, 46 

Bouillon, Cardinal de, 74, 265 

Bourbon, due de, see Due, M. le 

Bourbon, waters of, 63, 110 

Bourgogne, Louis, due de : a tragic 
figure, 317 ; birth, 317; joy at his 
birth, 75 ; childhood, 318-324 ; 
nearly shot, 359 ; education, 319- 
324 ; first Communion, 322 ; 



378 



THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 



marriage, 326, 359 ; the affaire 
Rohan, 36 ; ordered to play brelan 
at Marly, 251 ; at Meudon, 
307 ; meets Fenelon at Cambrai, 
325; Oudenarde, 334-339; at 
fall of Lille, 336, 337; un- 
popularity, 337, 338 ; returns to 
Versailles, 339 ; remodels his life, 
342, 343 ; at Monseigneur's death, 
312, 314, 315; refuses title of 
Monseigneur, 343 ; income, 343 ; 
popular, 343 ; receives shirt from 
due de Berry, 364 ; illness, 348 ; 
wife's death, 348 ; goes to Marly, 
349 ; last interview with King, 
349, 350 ; death, 350 ; conjectures, 
355, 356 

Character : a saint, 318, 322, 350, 
351, 353; early faults, 318-820; 
affection for Fenelon, 324-326, 
342 ; passion for knowledge, 320, 
323, 324 ; no military capacity, 
335 ; religious, 5, 336, 348, 351, 
352; ascetic, 331, 332; charitable, 
343; free from vindictiveness, 343, 
344, 363 ; laughs at ' Bourgeois 
Gentilhomme,' 359 ; practical joke 
at Marly, 20 ; passionately fond 
of his wife, 326, 331, 339 ; heart- 
broken at her death, 348 ; views 
on monarchy, 343, 351-353 ; fond 
of facts, 353, 354 ; his plans, 354, 
355 
Bourgogne (Marie - Adelaide de 
Savoie), duchesse de : practical 
jokes, 20, 70 ; not afraid of King, 
176 ; King's first impressions of 
her, 326 ; fond of Mme. de Main- 
tenon, 224, 326, 327, 328, 330; 
letter to Mme. de Maintenon, 
331 ; influence with the 
King, 4, 328 ; miscarriage at 
Marly, 176, 177; makes fun of 
her husband, 70, 332; her 
flirtations, 332-334; grief after 
Oudenarde, 338, 389 ; procures 
Vendome's disgrace, 341, 342 ; at 
Monseigneur's death, 312, 314, 
315 ; becomes Dauphine, 343, 344; 
her health, 344, 345 ; last illness, 
845-347; death, 347; letter of 
Mme. de Maintenon, 347, 348 ; 
grief of Court, 350, 351 ; charm of 



manner, 327, 328 ; fond of danc- 
ing, 16, 48, 49, 295 ; fond of cards, 
329 ; scrape over lansquenet, 330, 
331; popularity, 327, 328, 334, 
388, 347 ; described by Madame, 
266, 280, 281, 286 

Bretagne, due de (1), 55, 87, 334 

Bretagne, due de (2), 336, 350 

Brissac, due de, 44, 242 

Buvat, Jean, quoted, 230 



Cabale des Divots, 80, 147 
Canaples, comte de, 67 
Carte, M. de la, 256 
Castries, Mme. de, 313, 314 
Cavoye, marquis de, 73, 114-116, 

190 
Caylus, Mme. de, 67, 143, 156, 227, 

231, 347 
Chambre ardente, 83, 84, 151 
Chamillart, Michel de, 4, 31, 36, 51, 

172, 175, 224, 226, 238, 305, 837 
Chai-les II of Spain, 300, 358 
Chartres, due de, see Orleans, due de 
Chartres, duchesse de, see Orleans, 

duchesse de 
Chateaurenaud, marechal de, 73 
Chateauthiers, Mme. de, 264, 268, 

273 
Chatillon, duchesse de, 41, 42 
Chatre, marquis de la, 77, 78 
Chevreuse, due de, 69, 121-123, 168, 

221, 222, 325, 354 
Choin, Mile., 97, 298-300, 308, 310, 

311, 314, 315 
Choiseul, Mile, de, see Mesalliances 
Clerambault, Mme. de, 51, 268 
Coetlogon, Mile, de, 115 
Coislin, due de, 40, 41 
Colbert, 8, 121, 139, 148, 173, 332 
Commun, the Grand, 24, 25 
Compiegne, review at, 28, 222 
Conde, see Prince, M. le, and Due, 

M. le 
Conde, the great, 29, 89, 95, 163 
Conti (Louis-Armand) Prince de, 82, 

94 
Conti (Fran(;ois-Louis), Prince de, 

77, 78, 93, 94-98, 249, 250, 296 
Conti (Marie-Anne, Mile, de Blois), 
Princesse de, 71, 94, 161, 257, 298, 
303, 305, 806, 308-310 



INDEX 



379 



Conversation, art of, 66 
Coulanges, Mme. de, 66, 112 
Courtiers, their duties, 42-45 ; send 
plate to mint, 182 ; futility of ex- 
istence, 55-57 
Croix, M. de la, 299, 300 



Dangeau, due de, 6, 187, 333 
Dangeau, Mme. de, 223, 225, 226, 

227, 231 
Dauphin, the Grand, see Monsei- 

gneur 
Dauphine (Marie-Anne-Christine of 

Bavaria), 161, 211, 259, 277, 278, 

281, 297, 298 
Desgranges, 41, 42 
Desmarets, Nicolas, 117, 118 
Doctors, see Health 
Dubois, Cardinal, 262 
Dubois, valet de chambre, 293 
Due (Louis III, due de Bourbon), M. 

le, 72, 92-94, 96, 98, 99, 192, 238, 

239, 251 
Due (Louis-Henri, due de Bourbon), 

M. le, 94 
Duchesse (Louise-Frangoise, Mlle.de 

Nantes), Mme. la, 20, 51, 53, 71, 

93, 96, 161, 278, 303, 308, 310, 

315, 316, 330, 337, 362, 363 
Duclos, 348 

Duras, duchesse de, 178 
Duras, marechal de, 61 



Eccentrics, 75-78 

Edict of Nantes, revoked, 132, 164- 

167, 215, 216 
Effiat, marquis d', 241, 242 
Espinoy, Mme. d' {nde Lislebonne), 

305, 306, 308, 315 
Evreux, comte d', 48 



Fagon, 64, 65, 186, 224, 250, 301, 
307, 309, 310, 345 

Felix, 302 

F^nelon (Archbishop of Cambrai), 
Abbe de, 6, 11, 122, 129, 220-222, 
294, 319-326, 342, 343, 351, 354, 

Feuillet (Canon), 245, 246 



Fontainebleau,'21, 176, 227, 268, 273, 

278, 279 
Fontanges, Mme. de, 154 
Fontmort, Mme. de, 208 
Foucquet, 108, 109 
Fresque, comte de, 92, 93 



Gamaches, marquis de, 336, 337 

Games : balls, 47, 48 ; billiards, 51 
cards, 50, 51 ; chess, 52 ; dancing 
47 ; driving, 55 ; fireworks, 55 
hunting, 47 ; music, 54 ; novels, 
54 ; portraits, 53 ; tennis, 54 
water-parties, 53 

Gesvres, due de, 71, 72, 141 

Gesvres, marquis de, 249 

Glapion, Mme. de, 224 

Gobelin, Abbe, 66, 201, 204-206, 213, 
220 

Godeau (Bishop of Venee), his Cate- 
chism, 131, 132 

Godet des Marais (Bishop of 
Chartres), 221 

Gramont, due de, 67 

Grandcolas, see Mesalliances. 

Guiche, comte de, 237 

Guiche, duchesse de, 71 

Guignonville, M. de, 206 

Guitry, marquis de, 38 

Guyon, Mme., 220, 221, 324 

Hanovek, Sophia Electress of, 246, 
254, 276, 286, 288, 289 

Harcourt, Princesse d', 20, 51, 76, 
77, 164 

Harlay, Archbishop of Paris, 156, 
269 

Health : dirt, 59, 60 ; small-pox, 61, 
123, 307, 308, 315; infant mor- 
tality, 61 ; long life, 61 ; vapours, 
62 ; gout, 62, 63 ; doctors, 63, 65, 
285 ; quacks, 65, 190, 191 ; 
remedies, 285, 286 ; 1712 un- 
healthy, 60, 61, 345 

Helvetius, 65 

Henri IV, 34, 79, 129 

Henriette d'Angleterre, 240-243 

Herfort, Mme. d', 70 

Heudicourt, Mme. d', 81, 223, 225, 
226, 227 

Huxelles, marechal d', 304, 314 



380 



THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 



James II of England, 113, 174, 248, 
265, 266 



La Chaise, Pere, 156, 168, 181, 221 

La Fontaine, 31, 320 

La Porte, 130 

La Voisin (Monvoisin) Mme., 82-84, 
151 

Landass, Mme. de, 272, 273 

Langlee, M. de, 116, 117 

Langres, Bishop of, 51, 52 

Lauzun, due de, 62, 72, 99-116, 137, 
201 

Le Brun, 190, 191 

Le Camus, Cardinal, 169 

Le Notre, 6, 15, 160 

Le Tellier, Pere, 168, 188, 189, 190, 
309 

Le Vau, 8 

Leibnitz, 270, 274 

Lesdiguieres, duchesse de, see, 
Eccentrics 

Lislebonne, Mile, de, 303, 308, 310, 
315 

Lislebonne, see Espinoy, Mme. d' 

Lorraine, Chevalier de, 39, 237, 241- 
243, 262 

Lorraine, due de, 253, 265, 266 

Lorraine, duchesse de, 260, 265, 266 

Louis XIII, 7, 129 

Louis XIV, appearance, 4, 133, 140, 
186; early years, 129-136; his 
own minister, 136-138 ; concep- 
tion of monarchy, 27, 28, 126, 137, 
138,251; begins education afresh, 
138, 139; the new regime, 139- 
141 ; marriage, 143-146 ; friend- 
ship for Lauzun, 100-102, 113; 
banishes Lauzun, 107, 108 ; the 
King's friend, 118-120, 179; 
jealous of Conti, 95 ; cajoles S. 
Bernard, 117, 118; forbids duel- 
ling, 71, 98, 115; friendship for 
Mme. de Maintenon, 152-156 ; 
breaks an arm, 47, 156 ; secret 
marriage, 156, 157 ; revokes Edict 
of Nantes, 164-167 ; his ministers, 
29, 171-175 ; daily routine, 42- 
46 ; sad old age, 183-185, 229, 
230, 288; health, 127, 185, 186; 
his will, 184; death, 186-192, 
230, 289, 290 



Character: memory for faces, 22, 

127 ; kind to servants, 25 ; dis- 
likes criticism, 31 ; methodical, 
137, 163, 184; appetite, 62, 127, 
186 ; likes honesty, 65, 256 ; self- 
control, 46, 84, 102, 128, 137; 
ignorant, 135, 136, 139 ; generous, 
133, 165, 275, 315; charm of 
manner, 140 ; courteous, 135 ; 
humble, 178 ; fond of flattery, 
141, 142, 183; no sense of 
humour, 142, 143 ; inaccessible, 
158, 159 ; selfish and inconside- 
rate, 21, 163, 176, 177, 180 ; loses 
temper, 170, 171, 180; stickler 
for etiquette, 178, 179, 257, 258, 
280, 364; likes fresh air, 180; 
fond of music, 135, 185, 187 ; 
fond of hunting, 47, 120, 186, 187 ; 
fond of Mohere, 52, 142, 185 ; no 
conversation, 44, 225 ; apparent 
want of feeUng, 174, 175, 251 ; ' je 
verrai,' 143 ; proud of gardens at 
Versailles, 160, 164; fond of 
Marly, 21, 214; unbends at 
Marly, 20, 49 ; proud of military 
knowledge, 148, 173, 174 ; super- 
stitious, 81 ; credulous, 183 ; 
courage, 184 ; no imagination, 

128 ; his accurate eye, 14-16 
Family relations with : his 

mother 130, 133, 148, 149; the 
queen, 144-147, 156 ; Monsieur, 
130, 235, 237, 240, 242, 247, 248, 
250 ; Madame, 256-264, 266, 275- 
280, 288-290 ; Monseigneur, 161, 
295, 296, 301, 302, 308-316 ; 
Dauphine, 297 ; due de Bour- 
gogne, 339, 344, 350 ; duchesse de 
Bourgogne, 4, 175-177, 326, 330, 
341, 347; la Grande Made- 
moiselle, 105-107, 110 ; mis- 
tresses, 146-152, 155, 200, 204, 
205, 210 ; illegitimate children, 
151, 162, 184, 201, 261 

Religious views : general, 133, 
192; makes Court dull, 164; 
hatred of Huguenots, 132, 164- 
167 ; hatred of Jansenism, 133, 
167, 168, 222 ; destruction of Port 
Royal, 168, 169; hatred of un- 
orthodoxy, 31, 32, 122, 221; 
banishes Fenelon, 324, 325 ; 



INDEX 



381 



scruples over sack of Palatinate, 
169, 170, 259 ; jealous of his 
rights, 169 ; no ecclesiastic in 
council, 169 ; regrets over his 
wars, 189 

Louis XV (due d'Anjou), 64, 85, 184, 
189, 225, 229, 350 

Louis XVI, 3, 10, 42 

Louise, Eaugrave, 270 

Louvois, 6, 14, 15, 101, 102, 157, 
170-175, 211, 259 

LuUi, 54 

Luther, Martin, 271, 272 

Luxembourg, due de, 49, 304 



Madame (Elisabeth Charlotte, Prin- 
cess Palatine) described by herself, 
252 ; by Saint-Simon, 253 ; child- 
hood, 253-255 ; marriage, 243, 
255 ; adventure with Suisse, 23 ; 
relations with her husband, 244, 
245, 255, 256 ; protected by King, 
256 ; rebuked, 257 ; grief at sack of 
Palatinate, 258 ; hates Mme. de 
Maintenon, 259 ; friend of Dau- 
phine, 259, 297 ; loses King's 
favour, 259, 260 ; finds Court dull, 
164 ; her son's marriage, 261- 
265 ; daughter's marriage, 265, 
266; her letters, 70, 266, 267; 
life at Saint-Cloud, 244, 245, 267 ; 
dislikes French women, 267 ; and 
French schools, 70 ; her French, 
267 ; despises French Court, 268 ; 
death of Monsieur, 248, 249, 251, 
274, 275; scene with Mme. de 
Maintenon, 275-279; admitted to 
King's cabinet, 278 ; widowhood, 
279 ; at Monseigneur's death, 313 ; 
ill, 284-286 ; dislikes duchesse de 
Bourgogne, 279, 280, 327 ; recon- 
ciled, 286, 287 ; grief at son's un- 
popularity, 287 ; admitted to 
' Sanetuaire,' 288 ; scene with 
Mme. de Berry, 283, 284 ; death of 
due de Berry, 288, 368 ; of her aunt, 
288,289 ; illness of her son, 289 ; at 
King's death-bed, 289, 290; last 
letters, 290 

Character : fond of Nature, 255 ; 
kind to step-daughters, 243, 244 ; 
careless of dress, 257, 258 ; sleeps 



at sermons, 258 ; stern, but fond 
of children, 260 ; boxes son's ears, 
265 ; humour, 268 ; her food, 268, 
269 ; her books, 270 ; her religion, 
270-272; her medals, 273; her 
pets, 273, 274; fond of theatre, 
270, 279 ; stands up for her rights, 
279-281 ; her remedies, 285, 286 ; 
' le plus sot homme du monde,' 
244 ; other references, 54, 62, 68, 
69, 82, 85, 129, 162, 304, 318, 359 

Mademoiselle, la Grande (Mile, de 
Montpensier), 79, 87, 88, 102,103, 
104-113, 243, 270 

Maine, due du, 110, 162, 163, 179, 
180, 184, 188, 202, 204, 205, 224, 
247 

Maine, duchesse du, 12, 59, 60, 162, 
163, 191 

Maintenon, Mme. de, childhood, 195, 
196 ; conversion, 196 ; marries 
Scarron, 197 ; widowhood, 198- 
200 ; pension from the Queen, 
198 ; gouvernante, 152, 201 ; gains 
influence over King, 163 ; buys 
Maintenon, 203 ; intends to retire, 

202, 205; plans for the future, 

203, 204 ; quarrels with Mme. de 
Montespan, 155, 201, 202, 205, 
206, 210 ; at Bareges, 204, 205 ; 
marriage of her brother, 207-210 ; 
dame d'atour, 210; marries the 
King, 156, 211, 212 ; presides over 
family circle, 161 ; treated as 
Queen, 213, 214, 222 ; revocation 
of Edict of Nantes, 214,215 ; con- 
verts her relations, 216 ; Saint- 
Cyr, 216-222 ; breaks with F^ne- 
lon, 221, 222; death of brother, 
223 ; a day of her life, 224-227 ; 
anonymous letters, 227 ; educates 
duchesse de Bourgogne, 227-229, 
232 ; grief at her death, 229, 347, 
348 ; last years at Versailles, 229 ; 
death of King, 186-191, 230; 
retires to Saint- Cyr, 230 ; sees 
Peter the Great, 231 ; death, 231 ; 
her property, 231 ; scene with 
Madame, 275-279; visits Mile. 
Choin, 299 ; at Monseigneur's 
death, 308-310 ; her influence, 
193, 194, 231-233, 259, 338, 341 

Character : general, 193, 194,215, 



382 



THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 



231-233 ; proper pride, 199, 200 ; 
plans for life at Maintenon, 203, 
204 ; likes to have her own way, 
206 ; practical, 207-210, 217, 218 ; 
disinterested, 153, 154, 212, 231 ; 
disapproves of royal extravagance, 
212, 214; likes wit, 210; likes 
truth, 213 ; her opinions on mar- 
riage, 69 ; on women, 70 ; on rank, 
75, 211, 212 ; on sermons, 80 ; on 
the clergy, 81, 221, 222 ; horror 
of draughts, 21, 180, 214, 227; 
kind to the Queen, 156 ; views on 
reHgion, 215, 217, 219 ; horrified 
at sack of Palatinate, 170 ; re- 
bukes Louis, 155, 178 ; the peas, 
223, 224 ; interest in education, 
216-220, 227, 228; disliked by 
Madame, 259; aifeetion for 
duehesse de Bourgogne, 326-332 

Maisonfort, Mme. de, 220, 222 

Maneini, Marie, 54, 143 

Mansart, 10 

Marechal (King's surgeon), 63, 65, 
186, 224 

Marie-Antoinette, 5, 42, 59, 60, 334 n 

Marie Leczinska, 5 

Marie-Th6r^se (Queen), 115, 144- 
147, 150, 155, 156, 198, 213 

Mariette, 83 

Marly : site, 16 ; plan of, 17 ; gardens, 
18 ; accommodation, 18 ; cost, 19, 
212 ; etiquette at, 19, 21, 178 ; 
practical jokes at, 20, 48, 49, 72 ; 
le Kepos, 59 ; dull, 55 ; balls at, 
47-49, 183 ; King's last visit, 187 ; 
Mme. de Maintenon at, 17, 214, 
227 ; draughts at, 227 ; expenses 
cut down, 182 ; scenes at, 177, 
238, 302, 310, 315, 316, 341, 349, 
350 

Mascaron, P^re, 80 

Massillon, 78 

Maulevrier, comte de, 332-334, 348 

Mazarin, Cardinal, 129, 130, 132, 
136, 143, 169, 235 

Mesalliances, 74, 75 

Mesmes, President de, 365, 366 

Meudon, 47, 97, 98, 174, 299, 307- 
311 

Moli^re, 31, 52, 142, 147, 152, 185, 
270, 292 

Montfort, due de, 251 



Monseigneur, the Grand Dauphin 
birth and education, 146, 291- 
294 ; no influence, 295 ; income, 
296, 343 ; marriage, 297 ; at due 
de Bourgogne's birth, 75 ; a 
widower, 298 ; falls in love with 
Mile. Choin, 298 ; marries her, 
298 ; Spanish succession, 301 ; 
his indigestion at Marly, 301, 302 ; 
prejudiced against due de Bour- 
gogne, 306, 337, 343 ; breaks with 
Vendome, 341, 342 ; ill of small- 
pox, 307-309 ; death, 309-311 ; 
funeral, 315 ; death attributed to 
coffee, 269 

Character: described by Saint- 
Simon, 292, 296 ; afraid of King, 
161, 295; fond of Mile. Choin, 
300; life at Meudon, 303; his 
conversation, 225, 304 ; his apathy, 
4, 266, 294, 297, 304-306 ; rude to 
Madame, 281 

Monsieur (Philippe due d'0rl6ans), 
birth and education, 235 ; kicked 
by de Guiche, 237 ; his privileges, 
237; defends them, 238; traps 
M. le due, 238, 239; at his 
mother's death, 239, 240 ; his 
campaigns, 240 ; suspected of 
poisoning Henriette, 240-243 
second marriage, 243 ; Court at 
Saint-Cloud, 239 ; quarrels with 
King, 246-248; death, 250 
funeral, 251 ; practical joke on 
him, 72 ; unworthy favourites, 39 
241, 251, 256 

Character : described by Saint 
Simon, 234 ; effeminate, 236, 237. 
244; shows courage,! 240; his 
conversation, 161, 223, 246 ; ' la 
plus sotte femme,' 244 ; fond of 
cards, 244 ; an egoist, 245 ; super- 
stitious, 245, 246 ; no devot, 246 ; 
fond of oysters, 268 

Montaubon, Mme. de, 366 

Montausier, due de, 291-294, 319 

Montbazon, due de, 142 

Montespan, Mme. de, 14, 83, 84, 88, 
102, 106, 107, 110, 111, 143, 149- 
155, 164, 200-202, 204, 205, 209, 
210, 216 

Moreau, 353 

Motteville, Mme. de, quoted, 136 



INDEX 



383 



Nangis, marquis de, 332, 333, 348 

Nanon, 198, 212 

Nantes, Mdlle. de, see Duchesse, 

Madame la 
Neuillant, Mme. de, 195-197 
Noailles, Cardinal de (Archbishop 

of Paris), 212, 221, 222, 232 
Noailles, mar^eliale de, 91 
Noailles, due de (Comte d'Ayen), 

210, 347 
Noailles, duchesse de, 210 
Nogaret, Mme. de, 333 
Novion, 40 
Noyert, 101 
Noyon, Bishop of Orleans, 37-39 



Obleans, Gaston due d' (brother of 
Louis XIII), 235 

Orleans, Philippe due d', see 
Monsieur. 

Orleans, Philippe due d' (due de 
Chartres, afterwards Kegent), 
dabbles in black arts, 85, 86 ; sent 
to Spain, 167, 168 ; last interviews 
with King, 188, 190 ; relations with 
Mme. de Maintenon, 190, 230, 
233 (n.), 287; and Mdlle. Sery, 
247 ; described by Madame, 260, 
261 ; his marriage, 261-265 ; 
slapped by Madame, 265 ; defends 
his daughter, 284 ; suspected of 
poisoning, 287, 288 ; greedy, 289 ; 
at Monseigneur's death, 313 ; 
other references, 52, 54, 128, 246, 
247, 253, 260, 276, 282, 290 

Orleans (Fran(?oise - Marie de 
Bourbon, Mdlle. de Blois, then 
duchesse de Chartres), duchesse d', 
20, 161, 248, 261-264, 268, 269, 
278, 313, 362, 363, 368 

Orleans, Bishop of, see Noyon 



Palatine, Charles Louis, Elector, 

253-255, 258, 269, 270 
Panache, Mme., 69 
Paris, 60, 182, 266 
' Parvulo,' the, of Meudon, 299, 303, 

307, 337, 340 
Peasants, their sufferings, 57, 79, 

181, 182, 353 
Peter the Great, 231 



Philip IV of Spain, 144 

Philippe V of Spain (due d'Anjou), 

138, 300, 301, 342 n., 357, 358, 

359 
' Plans de Gouvernement,' 354, 355 
Polignac, Abb^ de (afterwards 

Cardinal), 19, 96, 97, 334 
Port Eoyal des Champs, 65, 168 
Practical jokes, 20, 72, 73 
Precedents, 34-42, 99 
Prieur, le Grand, 51, 97, 98, 304 
Prince, M. le (Henri-Jules Prince de 

Conde), 40, 41, 49, 52, 89-92, 94 
Princesse, Mme. la, 90, 92, 93, 

316 
Purnon, 242 
Puys^gur, marquis de, 340, 341 



Quacks, see Health 
Quaadt, Fraulein von, 254 



Bacine, 31, 197, 198, 218 
Eazilly, M. de, 359, 360 
Eegent, see Orleans, due d' 
Kheims, Archbishop of, 50 
Bichelieu, duchesse de, 211, 212 
Rochefoucauld, due de la, 38-40, 

118-120, 146, 177, 179 
Rohan, Cardinal de, 188 
Rohan, due de, 36, 37, 315 
Roland, Mme., 13 
Rousseau, 272 



Saint-Aignan, due de, see M^salli- 

QiYlGQQ 

Saint-Cloud, 60, 161, 239, 241, 242, 
244, 247-250, 266, 267, 274 

Saint-Cyr, 52, 59, 191, 216-222, 227, 
229-231 

Saint-H6rem, Mme. de, 75, 76 

Saint-Mars, 108 

Saint-Simon, due de, see Preface; 
anecdotes of : audience with King, 
159 ; his bad arm, 63 ; at due de 
Bourgogne's death, 349, 350 

Saint-Simon, Mme. de, 69, 365, 367 

Saint-Simon, Mme. de, mere, 41, 42 

Saint-Sulpice, 81, 223 

' Sanctuaire, le,' 278, 279, 288 

Savoy, Duke of, 175, 346, 348 



384 



THE GEEAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES 



Savoy, Duchess of, 326, 327 
Scarron, Paul, 53, 157, 197, 198 
Scarron, Mme., see Maintenon, 

Mme. de 
Seissac, marquis de, 50, 51 
Sery, Mile., 85, 247 
Sevigne, Mme. de, 67 ; quoted, 150 
Staal, Mme. de, quoted, 12, 162 
Suisses, 23, 24, 75, 313 
Superstition, 81-86 
Survivances, 172 



Tanceede, 248 
Tess6, marechal de, 334 
Torcy, Mme. de, 178, 179 
Toulouse, comte de, 163, 265, 288 
Tour, P^re de la, 92 
Tr^moille, due de la, 64, 315 
Tr^voux, Pk-e de, 250 
Trianon, 14-16, 72, 187 
Turenne, marechal de, 6, 29, 201 



Valentinois, due de, 47 

Valli^re, Mile, de la, 94, 147-149, 

150, 200 
Valli^re, due de la, 311 
Valois, Mile, de, 285 
Vatteville, Abb6 de, 123-125 



Vauban, marechal de, 30, 31 

Vaudemont, Prince de, 35 

Vendome, due de, 29, 38, 51, 52, 97, 
98, 304, 335-342 

Ventadour, Mme. de, 85, 189, 249, 
275-279 

Versailles, its size, 1, 12 ; hunting 
lodge, 7 ; alterations in 1662, 7 ; 
rebuilt, 8 ; transformed, 10 ; de- 
coration, 10 ; Court removed there, 
10 ; its discomfort, 11, 58 ; ac- 
commodation for dependents, 12 ; 
bad smells, 13 ; never empty, 22 ; 
servants, 24, 75 ; state apartments, 

10 ; petits cabinets, 59 ; the gar- 
dens, 159, 160 ; Galerie des Glaees, 

11 ; scene at Dauphin's death, 
311-314 ; the tassels, 45, 46 

Vervins, M. de, 77 

Villarceaux, Mme. de, 198 

Villars, due de, 201 

Villeroy, marechal de, 29, 71, 72, 

120, 198, 281 
Villeroy, mar^chale de, 120, 121 
Villette, marquise de, 195, 196, 198 



Webenheim, Colonel, 271 
Wendt, von (Madame's page), 260 
William III of England, 64, 65, 
265, 317 



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